Sebastian Vettel scored his sixth win of the campaign in the European GP where the fight at the front resembled F1 of seasons past.
Despite a double DRS zone, Pirelli tyres and KERS the Valencia street circuit proved resistant to providing an exciting race. Vettel came home in front of Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber with Lewis Hamilton a distant fourth.
24 drivers completed the grand prix, the highest number ever to finsh an F1 race.
Race Report
The sun beat down on the Valencia grid with not a cloud in the sky and an ambient temperature of 28C
Grid: 1.Vettel, 2.Webber, 3.Hamilton, 4.Alonso, 5.Massa, 6.Button, 7.Rosberg, 8.Schumacher, 9.Heidfeld, 10.Sutil, 11.Petrov, 12.DiResta
Start: As the lights went out it was Lewis Hamilton in P3 who got a bad start while the two Red Bulls in front managed to get away cleanly, under no threat from the McLaren.
The man on the move was Felipe Massa who got another blinding start from P5 and was up between Hamilton and team-mate Alonso into P3 very quickly. He looked to go up the inside of Mark Webber and take P2 into the first corner. Webber moved across to cover but left a gap wide enough for the Ferrari. Massa thought better of diving into it.
As he wavered he was overtaken around the outside by Fernando Alonso who was easily past Hamilton and swept into P3 via a trouble-free outside line. It all looked so simple. Hamilton dropped back into P5 with Rosberg in P6 who got up the inside of Jenson Button who had to give way to the Mercedes driver.
Further back everybody kept their front wings intact and nobody had to head off to the pitlane.
Lap 1 Positions: 1.Vettel, 2.Webber, 3.Alonso, 4.Massa, 5.Hamilton, 6.Rosberg, 7.Button, 8.Schumacher, 9.Sutil, 10.Heidfeld, 11.DiResta, 12.Barrichello, 13.Kobayashi
Straight away Nico Rosberg started to drop back from the front runners and by Lap 4 was 4.2 seconds behind fourth place Hamilton. By Lap 6 Jenson Button was through and past him, easily outbraking him into Turn 2. Ironically this wasn't a DRS zone. In Valencia the DRS zones were relatively ineffective, allowing cars to close up, but rarely pass.
At the front, the Ferraris were hanging on to the Red Bulls with Lewis Hamilton not far away either. On Lap 8 just 6.7 seconds covered the top 5. Jenson Button had lost touch with the top five having taken so long to get past Rosberg and even when past him wasn't able to close on them in free air.
On Lap 13, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Adrian Sutil pitted for tyres. A lap later, Mark Webber pitted but both Ferraris stayed out. At the end of Lap 15 Vettel, Alonso, Button and Schumacher came in.
While they were on in-laps and outlaps Lewis Hamilton had the hammer down. It looked like Ferrari had left Felipe Massa out too long, and so it proved. He emerged from the pitlane substantially behind Hamilton now back in P5 with Jenson Button still P6.
Cameras switched to Michael Schumacher's front wing which was floating loose - replays showed that he had emerged from the pitlane and tried to go up the inside of the earlier-stopping Vitaly Petrov. Petrov got to the apex of Turn 2 first and drove over the front of Schumi's front wing - in much the same way as he'd done in Turkey. Stewards would investigate but no action was taken.
Webber's early stop had given him a distinct advantage over Sebastian Vettel and he'd closed up to less than two seconds behind but on Lap 17 he came across an HRT just after Turn 17 and lost a whole second in four corners. He waved angrily but didn't get the time back. Vettel was tantalisingly out of reach now.
Lap 17 positions: 1.Vettel, 2.Webber, 3.Alonso, 4.Hamilton, 5.Massa, 6.Button, 7.Rosberg, 8.Alguersuari (not stopped), 9.Sutil, 10.Heidfeld, 11.Barrichello, 12. Perez (not stopped)
On Lap 20, only 2.9 seconds covered the front three drivers. Fernando Alonso was now right on Mark Webber's gearbox and by Lap 21 he managed to get up the inside of him into Turn 12 for P2. Webber didn't fall back, though and on Lap 23 put in the fastest lap of the race in his pursuit of Alonso.
Lewis Hamilton came in for more tyres on Lap 25 and immediately put in the fastest lap. Mark Webber pitted on Lap 27 as Lewis sprinted around for another fastest lap, early in his stint - being warned by his team not to take too much life out of the tyres. The response from Hamilton was: "I can't go any slower".
Fernando Alonso didn't stop till Lap 29 and the delay in coming in lost him the place to Mark Webber. Vettel stopped on Lap 30 while Felipe Massa waited even longer than Alonso and Webber caught and passed him on Lap 31.
The positions on Lap 32 were: 1.Vettel, 2.Webber, 3.Alonso, 4.Hamilton, 5.Massa, 6.Button, 7.Alguersuari (one stop), 8.Rosberg, 9.Sutil, 10.Heidfeld, 11.DiResta, 12.Barrichello.
Vettel had just a 1.8 second lead over Webber while the Australian was a mere 1.7 seconds in front of Alonso who had twelve seconds on Lewis Hamilton. Massa wasn't helped by a jammed rear wheel on his pit-stop that put him only just ahead of Jenson Button. Button was being delayed by an overheating KERS which had packed up and losing him time, though he was over half a minute in front of next man Rosberg and still going faster than him.
So now the big battle was between the top three with P4, P5, P6 and P7 all strung out while Alguersuari led the strategy battle for the rest of the points places. On Lap 35 Hamilton was 18.3 seconds behind third place Alonso.
From Lap 36 onwards Sebastian Vettel began to push and open the gap, setting fastest laps on Lap 36, 38 and 39. By Lap 41 he had opened up a 3.9 gap to Webber who pitted to take on medium compound Prime tyres for the last stint on Lap 42 (of 57). Hamilton pitted for his Primes the same lap.
It had been Webber's choice to come in early and it was the wrong one, Alonso was able to run three laps longer on his Option tyres and by the time that Webber was bringing his Primes up to temperature, Alonso was out of the pits in front of him and back into second place. Though Webber got close on Alonso's first lap out of the pits (into a gaggle of lapped cars), he couldn't get close enough to make a move and subsequently fell back. A little later his team radioed through that he had a gearbox problem, asking him to short-shift till the end of the race.
Vettel didn't pit till the end of Lap 47, with Massa and Button coming in for their final time on Lap 48. Massa had been closing the gap to Hamilton rapidly while Lewis had taken the life out of his third set of Option tyres, but yet again, staying out late had gifted Hamilton a huge advantage over the Ferrari. When Massa rejoined, Hamilton had established too big a gap in font of the Brazilian to be caught.
Thus Hamilton, Massa and Button cruised to the flag in that order of P4, P5 and P6. In front of this procession, Sebastian Vettel was having fun, opening the gap to Alonso and setting the Fastest Lap on Lap 53 with a 1:41.852.
Thus he duly took his sixth win of the season setting a new record at having finished the first eight races in either P1 or P2. Fernando Alonso was pleased to get P2, his best result in Valencia and Mark Webber thought this was his strongest race of the season.
Lewis Hamilton in P4 thought that that was where he would have ended up even if he'd kept the Ferraris at bay on the opening lap, whereas Felipe Massa's slow tyre stop robbed him of a place. 24 out of 24 cars finished what was a boring race by 2011 standards.
Jaime Alguersuari had a remarkable race, starting in P18 and coming home in P8 resisting pressurelate on from P9 man Adrian Sutil and making a two-stop strategy work.
However the main story was that the FIA's ban on changing engine maps after qualifying doesn't seem to have dented Red Bull's ability to win.
FH
Results
01. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h39:36.169
02. Alonso Ferrari + 10.891
03. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 27.255
04. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 46.190
05. Massa Ferrari + 51.705
06. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 1:00.000
07. Rosberg Mercedes + 1:38.000
08. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
09. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
10. Heidfeld Renault + 1 lap
11. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
13. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap
14. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap
15. Petrov Renault + 1 lap
16. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap
17. Schumacher Mercedes + 1 lap
18. Maldonado Williams-Cosworth + 1 lap
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 2 laps
20. Trulli Lotus-Renault + 2 laps
21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps
22. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps
23. Liuzzi HRT-Cosworth + 3 laps
24. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth + 3 laps
