COOPER: European GP - Team by Team

Formula 1

COOPER: European GP - Team by Team

Fernando Alonso’s brilliant win on home soil was a great story...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted June 25, 2012 Valencia (ESP)

Mark Webber of Australia and Red Bull Racing attends the drivers parade before the European Grand Prix at the Valencia Street Circuit on June 24, 2012 in Valencia, Spain. (Photo: Getty Images)

Valencia has traditionally provided us with a dull race so the fact that Sunday’s European GP turned out to be an action packed thriller says a lot about the kind of racing we are seeing in 2012. Anyone who predicted the top four after looking at the grid deserved to win a lot of money given that they started from 11th, 5th, 12th and 19th respectively! Fernando Alonso’s brilliant win on home soil was a great story, but we should not forget that the race was Sebastian Vettel’s, and that he retired with a failure that was in the control of the engine supplier and not the team. Here’s how things panned out up and down the field:

Red Bull
Red Bull had a significant update package in Valencia and that paid off when Sebastian Vettel took pole. However Mark Webber missed FP3 due to brake problems, and then had a hydraulic issue which meant he ran without DRS in Q1. Badly hampered, he ended up in 19th. At the start Vettel pulled away from the pack with impressive speed only to lose his advantage to the safety car. Immediately after the restart he stopped with an alternator failure. Webber started on new prime tires and didn’t make much progress early on. He had new softs for the middle stint and then a relatively late second stop gave him more fresh soft tires for the final stint and he moved up to fourth.

McLaren
McLaren struggled badly on Friday as both drivers suffered with front brake locking and tried to find a good set-up. Lewis Hamilton was much happier on Saturday, when he claimed second. Jenson Button was less so, and had to settle for ninth. Hamilton ran second early on but was passed by Grosjean. He had a bad second stop under the safety car after a jack failure and lost out to Alonso. In the latter stages he was hanging onto third when his tires went off badly. A collision with Maldonado saw him in the tire wall on the penultimate lap. Button started on primes, had a bad first lap and after a low-key race he finished eighth, having made no impression at all during the afternoon.

Ferrari
Ferrari didn’t quite get it right in Q2 which left Fernando Alonso in 11th and Felipe Massa in 13th. The Spaniard jumped up to eighth at the start and then rode his luck, passing a KERS troubled Nico Hulkenberg, gaining three places at the first stops, and then passing Lewis Hamilton at the second stops. He took Grosjean at the restart and then Vettel’s retirement gifted him a lead that he held to the flag. Massa wasn’t far behind him in the early laps but his handling went awry, and later he was delayed by a collision with Kobayashi. He finished 16th after an extra late pit stop.

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg was an encouraging second in Q2 but when it mattered in Q3 he slipped back to sixth, while Michael Schumacher didn’t make it and split the Ferraris in 12th. The latter had a spectacular race. Starting on the prime he had a low-key first stint, staying out until lap 19, but that gave him a relatively late second stop. With fresher soft tires he was able to charge up to third as others hit trouble. Rosberg had a disastrous first lap and dropped back to 11th. To salvage something the team ran an extra long first stint, pitting him on lap 20 and again on lap 46. With new rubber he moved up to sixth in the closing laps, setting fastest lap.

Lotus

Kimi Raikkonen of Finland and Lotus drives during the European Grand Prix at the Valencia Street Circuit on June 24, 2012 in Valencia, Spain. (Photo: Getty Images)

Once again Lotus was missing the final few tenths in qualifying as Romain Grosjean lined up fourth and Kimi Raikkonen fifth. The Frenchman got ahead of Maldonado at the start but then found himself stuck behind Hamilton as leader Vettel escaped. He managed to get by on lap 10 but by then the Red Bull was long gone. He pitted under the safety car but was passed by Alonso at the restart. He moved up to second when Vettel retired only to suffer an identical alternator failure on lap 40. That at least promoted Raikkonen to third, the Finn himself now stuck behind Hamilton. He finally got by with two laps to go but by then leader Alonso was well clear.

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