Post-race Analysis: Epic Valencia delivers best Formula 1 race so far this season


Non-stop action, drama, plenty of overtaking and a shocking finale. Not bad for a venue known to have monotone and boring racing. In short, Valencia will be remembered as one of/the best race of the 2012 season.

Shock 

Fernando Alonso - At the start of the weekend it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that Alonso would win, but starting 11th having missed out on Q3 nobody would have given him a chance in Valencia. The Spanish Gods were smiling on him today.

Shocker 

Pastor Maldonado - In an almost opposite situation to Alonso, Maldonado qualified brilliantly but then struggled to match pace for much of the grand prix until the final stint - when he threw away a podium finish by driving in to the side of Hamilton.

Best overtake 

Romain Grosjean - With his race being 

compromised by Hamilton early on, Grosjean made up for a lack of straight-line speed by outbraking the McLaren around the outside of turn 12 and then muscling through on the inside of turn 13

Best lap 

Sebastian Vettel - Take your pick of any of the first 35, but on the second lap Vettel extended his lead from 1.1s to 4.0s and ensured the race was his to win, until a suspected alternator failure robbed him

Worst lap 

Nico Rosberg - At the restart after the safety car period, Rosberg failed to get temperature in to his medium tyres and dropped from sixth place to 12th

Drive of the day 

Fernando Alonso - After a good start, Alonso judged a number of overtaking moves beautifully to run third behind the safety car. Having passed Grosjean and inherited the lead he then showed his experience to judge his pace perfectly to the flag to the delight of his home crowd

Fernando Alonso beats Raikkonen and Schumacher to win brutal European GP



Fernando Alonso came through from 11th on the grid to take a remarkable home victory in the European Grand Prix in Valencia. The result made the Ferrari driver the first repeat winner of the incredible 2012 Formula 1 season, and also moved Alonso into the championship lead.

The latter outcome was due in large part to Sebastian Vettel retiring with a mechanical problem on his Red Bull after dominating the first half of the race, and Lewis Hamilton's McLaren retiring late on in a collision with Pastor Maldonado's Williams as they fought for third.


Lotus's Romain Grosjean had looked like a victory threat as he chased Alonso, only to suffer an alternator failure, but his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen came through to claim second after a late pass on the fading Hamilton, whose incident with Maldonado then allowed Michael Schumacher to make his podium return for Mercedes in third place, chased by 19th-place qualifier Mark Webber's Red Bull.


Vettel commanded the early stages, immediately pulling out a lead of several seconds as the pack behind took several corners to sort itself out. Front row qualifier Hamilton got away slowly, and had to fend off several attackers before establishing himself in second ahead of Grosjean, Kamui Kobayashi, Maldonado, Raikkonen, Nico Hulkenberg and the fast-starting Alonso.


During the opening stint Alonso overtook Hulkenberg and followed Raikkonen past Maldonado, then jumped Raikkonen and Kobayashi by running one lap longer before his first pitstop.


This group then came out in a long train of yet-to-stop cars, through which Alonso made much more assertive progress than his rivals.


Approaching half-distance, Vettel was leading by 20 seconds over Grosjean, who had overtaken Hamilton with a neat outside-line move on lap 10 and then pulled out a 10s gap over the McLaren, which had Alonso edging closer.


When the safety car was called out to clear debris from a clash between Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso and Heikki Kovalainen's Caterham, most drivers made their second and final pitstops. Hamilton's was very slow, allowing Alonso to get up to third, and the Spaniard then went around the outside of Grosjean into the first corner at the restart to claim second.


Moments later that second place became the race lead, as Vettel's Red Bull suddenly cut out and retired, to the world champion's shock.


Grosjean kept Alonso under pressure and still seemed a likely winner, only for an alternator failure to halt the Lotus with 17 laps to go.


After that Alonso was able to pull clear and become the first repeat winner of the 2012 season, retaking the championship lead in the process.


Hamilton held on to second until the final two laps, when his tyres appeared to wilt. Raikkonen got past after a long battle, but when Maldonado tried to do likewise, the pair clashed, putting the McLaren in the barriers and breaking the Williams's front wing.


That allowed Schumacher through to claim the first podium of his Formula 1 return, as fended off Webber, who made great progress through from 19th on the grid.


Both Schumacher and Webber passed the Force Indias in the closing stages, with Nico Rosberg then getting his Mercedes between Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta's Force Indias to take sixth on the last lap.


Jenson Button had a low-key run to eighth for McLaren, ahead of Sergio Perez's Sauber and the limping Maldonado.


The second Ferrari of Felipe Massa was delayed with damage from a collision with Kobayashi and finished a lowly 16th. Kobayashi had to retire after the incident.


For some of the race it looked like Caterham might score its first point, as solid pace and the attrition ahead allowed Vitaly Petrov to pick his way up to 10th place. But the Russian was pushed back down the order and then tangled with Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo.

Sebastian Vettel expecting to fight Grosjean and Raikkonen for the win

Sebastian Vettel may have taken pole position, but hot conditions and impressive long run pace favor the Lotuses. The German expects to be fighting Raikkonen and Grosjean on Sunday afternoon.  

Vettel has won the last two races at Valencia from pole and is hoping to make it a hat-trick on Sunday. However, the unpredictable nature of this season means Vettel is not taking anything for granted. 

Romain Grosjean and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen are widely tipped as a dark horses for race victory because of the Lotus's performance in hot weather and race conditions. "Lotus have proven in Bahrain that they will be there in hot conditions. Grid position is important but maybe not as important [as it used to be].", reckons Vettel. 

However, the circuit in Valencia does not offer many overtaking possibilities. Jenson Button is not expecting to make progress on his grid position. Still, the Briton also expects Lotus to fight for victory tomorrow. "The only people I would say can maybe move up will be the Lotuses., said Button. His team-mate, Lewis Hamilton shares his views: "The Lotuses look massively competitive, I think they're going to be the ones to watch out for tomorrow."

Romain Grosjean declared fourth on the grid a good result for Lotus despite looking like having the pace to challenge for pole position.

At the end of Q2 Grosjean was the quickest driver and with track temperatures high the conditions seemed to be suiting Lotus. However, in Q3 Grosjean saw his best time beaten by Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado to knock him back on to the second row. Despite that, Grosjean was not disappointed, pointing out that it was his second best qualifying performance of the season.

"The only time I've been better on the grid was in Melbourne when we were P3," Grosjean said. "Monaco we were P5, here we're P4 so it's getting better. It's not as good as the Red Bulls today, which were flying but again we are consistent at the front. There's no race where we are really up and another when we are down. So it's good, the race pace looks good from yesterday which is interesting for tomorrow. We have to discuss some of the strategy but I think without compromising our race set-up we managed to get a good qualy lap today."

When asked if Lotuses long run pace meant this could be the race that it secures its first victory this season, Grosjean said it could be but added that a win wasn't the be all and end all.

"It might be the one, as the next one might be the one or the next one again. It depends on circumstances, it depends on a lot of things. If I was starting tomorrow without thinking about the win it wouldn't be right, but I'm not focused on only winning the race. If we can then I will do it, if we cannot then I'll take the points, the podiums or whatever we can get. Every result is important for the championship, we are fighting with Ferrari who is behind us and with McLaren there is one in front and one behind. So we have a good chance to score good points and that's the main objective."

Sebastian Vettel takes pole position in Valencia

Sebastian Vettel beat Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado to pole position in a spectacular qualifying battle ahead of the European Grand Prix in Valencia.

Williams driver Maldonado looked set to start first for the second time this season - having inherited Barcelona pole after Hamilton was penalised - as he surged to the top with a 1m38.475s lap in the closing moments of qualifying.

But Vettel was putting in a spectacular lap in the revised Red Bull, coming through to depose Maldonado by nearly four tenths of a second with a 1m38.086s.

Hamilton's McLaren then slipped ahead of Maldonado by 0.065s with the Briton's final lap.

Lotus could not quite produce the pole challenge that many had predicted, but still qualified better than has often been the case this year, with Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen lining up fourth and fifth.

The astonishingly close initial stages of the session claimed several early victims - including both Ferraris, Michael Schumacher's Mercedes and Mark Webber's Red Bull, none of which made it into the top 10.

That was in part because a host of underdogs proceeded to Q3, with both Force Indias and Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi reaching the top 10.

The Force Indias both made appearances inside the top four during Q3 before being edged back to eighth (Nico Hulkenberg) and 10th (Paul di Resta), split by Jenson Button's McLaren.

Kobayashi took seventh, just behind Nico Rosberg's Mercedes.

Less than three tenths of a second covered the top 13 cars in Q2, and several top teams were squeezed out.

Most significantly for the title battle and most disappointing for the Spanish crowd was that Alonso missed out on Q3 by 0.004s, as lapping just 0.218s off pacesetter Grosjean left him 11th. Schumacher squeezed in between the two Ferraris in 12th, with all three less than 0.08s from the Q3 cut-off.

The other early shock was that Webber only managed 19th, hampered by hydraulic issues and a lack of DRS on his Red Bull.

The session gave Heikki Kovalainen and Caterham another chance to star, and the Finn outpaced both Toro Rossos to take 16th on the grid, behind Bruno Senna (Williams) and Sergio Perez (Sauber), both of whom were some way off their team-mates' pace in Q2.

It was a tough session for Marussia. While Timo Glock was sidelined by illness, his team-mate Charles Pic was unable to beat either HRT.

European GP: Red Bull tipped for pole, Lotus for win

Red Bull brought an impressive array of updates for its RB8 to Valencia which Mark Hughes reckons makes it a contender for pole. But come race day it could be Lotus that is dictating the pace of the European Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time of the second free practice session for the European Grand Prix.

Vettel's time of 1:39.334 set on soft tyres was enough to put him at the head of a group of 15 cars which were separated by less than a second. Second quickest was Nico Hulkenberg as Force India showed the sort of pace that could make it contenders for a Q3 slot tomorrow, while Kamui Kobayashi was third for Sauber - just 0.261s behind Vettel.

Michael Schumacher and Bruno Senna made it five different teams in the top five as the field was extremely close on one-lap pace, something that will cause a number of headaches amongst the teams ahead of qualifying.

The Lotus race pace was still evident as Romain Grosjean was the quickest man during the longer runs, but again it struggled a touch when trying to set a headline time - Grosjean half a second off the pace in eighth place and Kimi Raikkonen back in 11th.

Even further back were the McLaren pair as Jenson Button ended the session in 12th and Lewis Hamilton 14th. Both drivers were fairly early on to the soft tyres during FP2 so the times can't be read in to too much, but it appears Button has found a few answers to his recent struggles as he ended the session 0.656s slower than Vettel and almost 0.2s ahead of his team-mate.

At the back of the field the updated Caterham matched the pace of the Toro Rossos, although both teams were at least half a second off the pace of the rest of the teams ahead.

Pedro de la Rosa caused a yellow flag when he put his HRT in the wall at turn 14. It was a strange incident as de la Rosa was cruising round but appeared to misjudge how quickly he was still going and just understeered straight in to the tyres, burying the car. A number of other drivers locked up and ran wide as they had in FP1, but Sergio Perez managed a full spin at turn 17 as he seemed slightly out of sorts; eventually ending the session almost a second slower than Kobayashi.

Canada: Hamilton writes F1 history by becoming seventh different winner after seven races 

Lewis Hamilton finally took his first victory of the 2012 Formula 1 season as the McLaren driver charged back to pass the one-stopping Fernando Alonso's Ferrari and win the Canadian Grand Prix for the third time in his career.

The result also makes Hamilton the seventh different race winner in as many GPs this year, extending the record.

Lotus's Romain Grosjean and Sauber's Sergio Perez took the second podium finishes of their careers as they demoted the fading Alonso, who eventually dropped to fifth.

Poleman Sebastian Vettel only finished fourth, but had led Hamilton and Alonso in the opening stint. The Red Bull driver was the first of the trio to stop for tyres, and found himself jumped by both his rivals as they came in shortly afterwards. Alonso came off best of all as he vaulted both the Red Bull and the McLaren, but Hamilton was able to re-pass the Ferrari in the DRS zone on Alonso's out-lap.

The McLaren then edged slightly away before coming in for a second tyre stop on lap 49. Alonso and Vettel decided to try and make it to the end on their existing rubber, but Hamilton had the pace to hunt down and pass both of them, going to win and claim the points lead in the process.

Vettel then gave up his one-stop attempt and made a very late tyre stop, while Alonso clung on and hoped to still make it to the end in second, only for his pace to get ever worse. Grosjean - who had pitted only two laps later than the Ferrari - was soon past Alonso into second, with Perez (who left his sole stop until lap 41) and the recovering Vettel also easily dismissing the Spaniard.

Two-stoppers Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) and Mark Webber (Red Bull) were sixth and seventh, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus and Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber.

Felipe Massa spun from fifth to 12th in his Ferrari early on, and had to settle for 10th after stopping twice for tyres.

Force India's Paul di Resta had a spell as high as sixth in the early running, only to lose ground with a relatively early first of two pitstops, leaving him 11th.

It was another disastrous race for both Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher. The second McLaren had to make three tyre stops and finished a lapped 16th, while the rear wing flap on Schumacher's Mercedes jammed open, ending his race.

Canadian GP: Hamilton tops both practice sessions

Lewis Hamilton was on top for McLaren as the rain held off in the second Canadian Grand Prix practice session in Montreal on Friday.

After going quickest in the morning, Hamilton barely let anyone else have a look in at the head of the order in the afternoon, moving to the front for the first time after 14 minutes with a 1m15.895s lap.

That time then came down and down - the Briton eventually reaching a best of 1m15.439s on soft tyres.

He then went slightly faster still at the start of a long super soft run just before the session's halfway point, lapping in 1m15.259s, a time that would stand as the best of the day.

Fernando Alonso came closest to deposing Hamilton. The Ferrari driver had a wild spin through the Turn 8/9 chicane early on, visited the grass there again shortly after, but avoided damage and eventually got to within 0.054 seconds of taking the top spot. His team-mate Felipe Massa was less than a tenth slower in third.

Sebastian Vettel took fourth in the leading Red Bull, ahead of an impressive performance from Force India's Paul di Resta in fifth. Kamui Kobayashi's Sauber was sixth.

Mercedes duo Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg lined up seventh and 10th, sandwiching the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg and Jenson Button's McLaren. The latter only made it out for the final 18 minutes of the session as his car required a gearbox change following its morning oil leak.

Like the morning session, practice two also featured a single red flag just after the mid-point. This time it was Bruno Senna in the wars, as he spun his Williams backwards into the wall at the final chicane -shattering one of the team's funky new rear wings among other things.

Caterham managed to repair Heikki Kovalainen's car after the Finn's practice one crash and he was able to join the action half an hour in, eventually taking 16th place.

The Canadian GP Preview: Lucky Number Seven?

Will we see a little bit more history made in Canada with a seventh winner in the seventh race? Or will McLaren’s Jenson Button, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, Williams’ Pastor Maldonado or Red Bull’s Mark Webber step up as 2012’s first repeat victor?

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, Lotus team mates Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean and Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher would all dearly love to stop them, and the truth is that all 10 drivers, plus perhaps Ferrari’s revitalised Felipe Massa, have a chance this weekend.


On paper this track should favour McLaren, who are still thought to have the best car aerodynamically, and they certainly need an upturn in form having failed through a variety of circumstances to make the podium since China. 


But Mercedes and Lotus fancy their chances here, Red Bull don’t believe that having to close up holes/slots in their floor will hurt them too much (after the FIA’s post-Monaco rule clarification), and Ferrari say their form here will dictate their likely performance over the rest of the season.


“I know that the results we all want will soon come to us,” Hamilton says. “I’m looking forward to bringing the fight to Montreal, which is one of my favourite races of the season. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a fantastic track. It’s super-fast in places, which means it requires finesse and precision, but you can also end up racing wheel-to-wheel with people at 200 mph too, which is an incredible sensation.


“However, you still want a car with decent low-speed traction - all those long drags are usually preceded by tight hairpins, so it’s important that you can get the power down efficiently if you’re to pull a good lap time together. With KERS and DRS in the mix, it should be an exciting Grand Prix - although, interestingly, we’re reverting to a shorter, single-DRS zone after the double-zone last year.”


This will be after Turn 10, the hairpin, and will begin 600 metres before the braking zone for Turn 13, the entry to the final corner. It is 50 metres shorter than last year as the FIA considered overtaking was too easy then. 


“On paper,” Hamilton concludes, “I think our car will be well-suited to the combination: we showed in Spain that we’re very good in high-speed corners, but we were also quick in the final sector, which is slower and more technical. Of course, it’s still difficult to predict the outcome accurately, so I’ll be focusing on another clean weekend where I can score more consistent world championship points.”


Meanwhile Button, last year’s winner, says: “This weekend it’s going to be important to get a handle on the car in qualifying. At the last two races, Q2 hasn’t gone my way, so, no matter what pace you have in the race, you’re still compromised on Sunday afternoon, particularly as the pack is so tightly bunched at the moment. My aim will be to have a stronger qualifying performance and to be able to build on that in the race.”


“With its low downforce and slow corners, the track’s a little bit like Monza and should suit our car,” Rosberg says. “We've made good progress over the past few weeks, and that was clear from the performance in Monaco. So I'm hopeful that we can make another step forward here.”


Lotus boss Eric Boullier is determined to get Raikkonen and Grosjean back on track after the bitter disappointment of Monaco, while Fernando Alonso says menacingly: “In Canada we want to confirm our improvement and be competitive in a more 'normal' circuit because Monaco is unique due to its characteristics and Barcelona has very quick corners. Canada and Valencia are going to be two very important tests for us to see if we can really put both Ferraris in Q3, like we did in Monaco, and opt to be in the top places.


“We're taking some upgrades to Canada, a race both on and off the track because all the big teams are going to bring new parts so let's see whose works best. We've tried to extract the most of what we had and our rivals have let their guards down. This year two or three tenths makes you lose or gain five or six places, because everything is very close."


Pirelli are bringing their two softest tyres again - the P Zero Red super-soft and P Zero Yellow soft - but face a very different challenge to Monaco two weeks ago. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve may be another temporary circuit, but it’s significantly faster and tyre wear is much greater. Thus there will be far more pit stops than we saw two weeks ago. 


The circuit changes a lot during the course of the race weekend as more rubber goes down, which means that engineers and drivers are constantly honing their cars’ set-ups. The brakes also take a caning here, more than anywhere else, with heavy retardation into the first corner, the chicane out the back and again for the hairpin, and good traction is essential to exit the numerous slow- and medium-speed corners. 


As the surface is relatively low grip, the cars also oversteer a fair bit, exacerbating tyre consumption. Finding the tyres’ sweet spot has exercised everyone all season; here it may be even harder.


Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motorsport director says: “We go from Monaco to Canada: two of the most spectacular races of the year. Not only is Montreal a fantastic place to hold a race, but it’s also a great circuit. The soft and super-soft tyres should be able to demonstrate more of their natural characteristics than they were able to in Monaco, where drivers are constrained by very low average speeds and not much energy going through the tyre. 


“This enabled them to complete very long runs even on the super-soft, which should not be the case in Montreal where the tyres have more work to do. Tyres have traditionally played a very important role in this race, especially if it rains. 


“The practice sessions will be vital for teams to understand how exactly the tyres work on full tanks in particular. We think we will see several different strategies at work, with teams likely to split their strategies in order to cover every possibility.”


Weather-wise, it could be a mixed weekend again, with isolated thunderstorms forecast for Thursday, and partial cloud with the possibility of showers for the remainder of the meeting, with ambient temperature highs of around 23 degrees Celsius. 


Minor changes to the track include the replacement of steel guardrails in Turn 10 with walls topped by safety fences.


Timings will be as normal on Friday, but on Saturday practice and qualifying will each start an hour sooner (1000 hours and 1300 hours respectively). The race will run over 70 laps or 305.270 kilometres (189.688 miles) and starts at 1400 hours local time, which is four hours behind GMT.