Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel: The dominating winning duo

Valencia - Dubai - Cairo /

It was a yawning week-end without any interesting adrenalin kicks like the ones Formula 1 enthusiasts enjoyed till the last lap of the entertaining Canadian GP, when 2010 World Champion and Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel scored his sixth victory of the season in Valencia on Sunday, without anyone being able to threat his dominance at any stage of the Grand Prix.

Former double World Champion and Spanish Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso battled with Australian Red Bull driver Mark Webber and ultimately prevailed as the Australian's RB7 racing machine suffered from a couple of problems in the closing stages of the race and prevented him attempting to regain the second place he had held on two different occasions.

2008 World Champion and Vodafone McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton was 46.1 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel on a day when Vodafone McLaren Mercedes lacked the pace of their competitors, leading Felipe Massa's Ferrari and 2009 World Champion and team mate Jenson Button to the finish line.

The Alonso/Webber battle was the main interesting thing at the front as Sebastian Vettel simply ran off and expanded and reduced his lead to the second placed car voluntarily to avoid falling asleep. His Australian team mate Mark Webber was able to defend second place, under pressure, from Lap One to 20, but then Alonso overtook after exploiting his DRS when both were diving into Turn 12. The Spanish Ferrari driver Alonso then stayed there until his second pit stop on Lap 29, whereupon Webber went back in front having stopped a lap previously.

His third and final stop on Lap 42 promoted Fernando Alonso again, and as Red Bull driver Mark Webber had run wide going into the pits and lost crucial time, the Ferrari driver was able to stop on Lap 45 and then stay ahead. It was a misery when Mark Webber fell away quite dramatically, as his car developed a gearbox problem. He was so far ahead of Lewis Hamilton, however, that his podium place was never challenged by the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes whose aggressive driving style was overusing the Pirelli tires as he was exploiting their maximum capacity.

Nico Rosberg finished a lonely seventh for Mercedes, ahead of a mighty tussle between Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari, who ran a great two-stop strategy, and on-form three-stopper Adrian Sutil, who was only 0.4s behind him in his Force India as they finished eighth and ninth, a lap down. Nick Heidfeld had an incident free run to 10th and the final point for Renault, ahead of Sergio Perez who drove his Sauber heroically with only one stop and deserved a point for the effort, proving that he recovered well from the breathtaking crash he suffered during the qualifying session of the Monaco GP.

In another of those no longer so rare races in which all 24 cars which started from the grid crossed the finish line, Williams' Rubens Barrichello headed home Sebastian Buemi in the second Toro Rosso, Paul di Resta's Force India, Vitaly Petrov's Renault, Kamui Kobayashi's two-stopping Sauber, and a delayed and frustrated Michael Schumacher who had the front wing of his Mercedes face-lifted by Petrov immediately after rejoining the race after his first pit stop.

Pastor Maldonado's Williams came home behind the seven-time World Champion.

Heikki Kovalainen beat Team Lotus team mate Jarno Trulli to 19th place, while Timo Glock saw off Virgin partner Jerome D'Ambrosio, who was involved in a mighty tussle early on with Tonio Liuzzi's HRT before passing the latter. Liuzzi thus took 23rd, well ahead of team mate Narain Karthikeyan who was a source of annoyance for a lot of cars which were hindered by his driving style while smoothly trying to overlap him, thus losing precious time.

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel now has 186 points to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Jenson Button and Australian Red Bull Mark Webber on 109, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton on 97 and Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso on 87. In the constructors' championship, Red Bull is leading with 295 points to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' 206 and Scuderia Ferrari's 129.

AE

26.06.2011