Sebastian Vettel claimed his first victory since the Malaysian Grand Prix in April and put his world championship challenge back on course with a commanding lights-to-flag display in Valencia.
The young German took control of the race from pole position and never relinquished it.
His only anxious moment came when he got sideways at the restart following a safety car period triggered by a colossal aerial accident involving his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber on lap nine.
After contact with Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus, Webber’s car was launched into a frightening somersault, briefly landed upside down and then ploughed into the tyre barrier at alarming speed.
Miraculously the Australian walked away unscathed, but the resultant safety car interlude scrambled the race order and was still a source of controversy after the chequered flag flew.
Lewis Hamilton, who had passed Webber for second place at the start, overtook the pace car as it made its way onto the circuit and incurred a drive-through penalty.
But the nine-lap delay before the stewards announced the sanction – and the fact that other leading cars, notably the Ferraris, had been trapped behind the safety car and lost a host of positions – meant that Hamilton was able to serve his penalty and rejoin still in second place.
The 2008 world champion did lose touch with Vettel, but in truth had looked unlikely to threaten the Red Bull in any event.
It was a closer duel than the other Germany v England contest of the day, but had much the same outcome…
Jenson Button was one of the drivers who profited from the timing of the safety car by being able to duck into the pits immediately without getting caught behind it on the circuit – elevating him to an eventual third place behind his McLaren team-mate.
However, the results from third place downwards remained in doubt for several hours after the race while the stewards investigated whether nine drivers had failed to stay within the prescribed speed limits as they hustled to the pit lane on the lap the safety car period was declared.
So Button, fourth-placed Rubens Barrichello (Williams), fifth-placed Robert Kubica (Renault), sixth-placed Adrian Sutil (Force India), eighth-placed Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) and 10th-placed Pedro de la Rosa all faced an anxious wait to see whether their points would stand.
Ultimately they escaped relatively lightly with 5s penalties, which had only a minor effect on the overall race order.
So Barrichello retained fourth place, giving Williams by far its best result of the season after a morale-boosting weekend-long performance, while Kubica and Sutil kept fifth and sixth.
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi drove by far his best race since his days as a Toyota stand-in at the end of last year to take seventh.
The Japanese driver made the hard tyres he started the race on last for 54 of the 57 laps, then mounted a thrilling charge on fresh super-soft rubber which took him past Fernando Alonso on the penultimate lap and Buemi at the very last corner.
Crowd favourite Alonso was so enraged at his and Hamilton’s contrasting fortunes following the safety car intervention that he branded the result “unreal and unfair”, and doubtless won’t have been greatly consoled to find himself promoted from ninth to eighth thanks to Buemi’s 5s penalty.
The stewards’ post-race ruling gave Nico Rosberg the final point for 10th place, salvaging a crumb of comfort for Mercedes after a deeply disappointing weekend and denying de la Rosa the first point of his F1 comeback season.
The race had been frantic from the get-go, with Hamilton leapfrogging Webber in the first right-hand curve and making an ambitious lunge at leader Vettel into turn two. The ensuing minor contact damaged Hamilton’s front wing endplate, but he was given a new nose cone at his pit stop so didn’t pay a significant price.
Vettel built a 4s lead by lap nine, when Webber’s monumental accident brought out the safety car and prompted a stampede on the pit lane.
The Australian had been shuffled all the way down to ninth place on the opening lap, had pitted early to escape the traffic after seven laps, and so unexpectedly found himself dicing with Kovalainen’s much slower Lotus for position.
As he tucked deeper and deeper into the Lotus’s slipstream going down the 190mph stretch before turn 12, Webber seemed to be caught out by how early Kovalainen braked, hit him up the back and was catapulted into the air at full speed.
On its way back down the Red Bull wiped out an advertising hoarding before landing upside down, rolling back onto its wheels and plunging into the tyre wall.
To everyone’s immense relief a clearly shaken Webber walked away unharmed, and attention shifted to the effects of the safety car period and frenetic pit lane action.
Vettel was ahead of the safety car when it emerged onto the circuit so was able to make an uneventful pit stop without losing the lead, while most of those running fifth and below – headed by Kubica, Button and Barrichello – dived straight into the pits before catching the AMG Mercedes.
It was the speed at which they did so that the stewards were unimpressed with, since drivers have to stay within prescribed sector time windows while on an in-lap under SC conditions.
The Ferraris were badly hampered behind the pace car, with Felipe Massa losing even more time when he had to queue behind team-mate Alonso in the Ferrari pit box and plummeting to 17th place.
Hamilton was just behind the safety car at the crucial cut-off point where it left the pit lane exit and joined the circuit, but proceeded to pass it and follow Vettel round to the pits.
The video evidence seemed clear-cut, but the long delay before the officials announced Hamilton’s penalty infuriated Alonso, who – having been hard on the McLaren’s tail – had dropped to 10th place by the restart on lap 15.
Kobayashi, meanwhile, had stayed out during the caution period and vaulted to third place ahead of Button and Barrichello, who had got ahead of Kubica in the pit stop exchanges.
Kobayashi might have been expected to crumble in such exalted company, but instead, as in Brazil and Abu Dhabi last season, seemed to revel in it and easily kept Button at bay all the way to his mandatory pit stop for soft tyres with three laps remaining.
In the meantime Hamilton had closed the large gap that opened up between him and leader Vettel following his penalty, but the Red Bull man had matters firmly under control and cantered to his second win of the season.
Overtaking once again proved a tough proposition on the Valencia street track, and several closely matched groups – Kobayashi and Button; Barrichello and Kubica; Buemi, Sutil and Alonso – formed high-speed processions for much of the afternoon.
Sutil broke the stalemate with a fine pass of Buemi on lap 39, and in the last three laps Kobayashi – armed with fresh super-soft rubber – was a man on a mission, impressively dispatching first the frustrated Alonso and then Buemi.
European Grand Prix result - 57 laps
1 VETTEL Red Bull
2 HAMILTON McLaren +5.0s
3 BUTTON McLaren +12.6s*
4 BARRICHELLO Williams +25.6s*
5 KUBICA Renault +27.1s*
6 SUTIL Force India +30.1s*
7 KOBAYASHI Sauber +30.9s
8 ALONSO Ferrari +32.8s
9 BUEMI Toro Rosso +36.2s*
10 ROSBERG Mercedes +44.3s
11 MASSA Ferrari +46.6s
12 DE LA ROSA Sauber +47.4s*
13 ALGUERSUARI Toro Rosso +48.2s
14 PETROV Renault +48.2s*
15 SCHUMACHER Mercedes +48.8s
16 LIUZZI Force India +50.8s*
17 DI GRASSI Virgin +1 lap
18 CHANDHOK HRT +2 laps
19 GLOCK Virgin +2 laps**
20 SENNA HRT +2 laps
21 TRULLI Lotus +4 laps
22 HULKENBERG Williams +8 laps*
23 KOVALAINEN Lotus +49 laps
24 WEBBER Red Bull +49 laps
Fastest lap: BUTTON 1m38.766s (lap 54)
* 5s added to race time for safety car violation
** 20s added to race time for ignoring blue flags
Subject: F1 2010 CHAT ROOM 
Sat Jun 26, 2010 4:47 am
