Valencia, 27 June

Fernando Alonso took the chequered flag at the end of the 57 laps of the European Grand Prix in ninth place and Felipe Massa in fourteenth. The race was completely ruined for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro duo because of a badly managed Safety Car period and there was further chaos after the race, with no less than 9 drivers brought before the Stewards for an infringement during the neutralised part of the race: meagre compensation, their penalties moved Fernando and Felipe up to eighth and eleventh respectively: meagre indeed, when the podium had beckoned from the start. On the podium, Sebastian Vettel was the winner for Red Bull, with the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finishing in second and third places respectively.



As the red lights went out, Webber got away poorly so that while Vettel led from pole, Hamilton, Fernando and Felipe all got past the Australian, who then dropped down as far as ninth. Behind Felipe came Kubica, Button, Barrichello and Hulkenberg. Webber made an early pit stop on lap 7, coming out behind Kovalainen and on lap 10, trying to pass the Lotus, Webber’s Red Bull clipped its rear end which launched him into the air, the car completing a somersault, before sliding across a run-off area to end up in the tyre wall. It was a massive accident, but fortunately Webber was unhurt. However, it meant the Safety Car came out and almost everyone from Button in fifth, going down the order were able to pit immediately to change onto the harder tyres which would last to the chequered flag. The top four all had to complete one more lap as they had already gone past the pits. From this point onward, the Scuderia’s race was completely ruined. While the leader Vettel was already past the pit exit when the Safety Car came out, Hamilton ran parallel to it, eventually passing it, for which he was later given a drive-through penalty. By the time the McLaren man came in to take the penalty, his race was saved by Kobayashi: the Sauber driver was the only one to start on the hard tyre and was running in third place and eventually would not change to the softs until a handful of laps before the flag. But his lack of pace, meant he was holding up the field, so that Hamilton was able to carry out his penalty and still rejoin the track in second place.

So, while the two leaders, Vettel and Hamilton maintained their positions, Fernando and Felipe having completed pretty much a whole lap at slow speed behind the Safety Car, then carried out a double pit stop and found themselves relegated to tenth and fifteenth places respectively. The rest of the Grand Prix was more consistent with past races at this track, with very little overtaking, which meant that Fernando and Felipe never really had any chance of turning the situation around. In fact towards the end, Fernando even had to give best to Kobayashi, who running on brand new soft tyres was easily faster than the Ferrari, passing not only the Spaniard, but also Buemi. So, the order in which the cars crossed the line at the end of the 57 laps was: Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Kobayashi, Buemi, Alonso and De La Rosa tenth in the last points position, while Massa was classified fourteenth at the flag. Then, no less than nine drivers were summoned to see the Stewards for not obeying a minimum speed rule behind the Safety Car: each of them was given a five second penalty, so that official classification now reads: Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Kobayashi, Alonso, Buemi and Rosberg tenth for the final point, with Felipe just behind him.