F1 the Vanilla Race

Sunday, 26 June 2011 20:08

The 2011 European Grand Prix at Valencia in Spain was a race of no surprises, no spills, thrills or upsets.

Hard fought, it gave us unusually close racing. In 2010, we’d probably have thought it an amazing race – but in 2011, the season of disintegrating tyres, drag reduction systems, off-throttle blown diffusers and inventive engine mapping, it was unusual for the wrong reason. The majority of the field finished within a position or two of where they qualified.

Notable exceptions were: Michael Schumacher, who began ninth but ended seventeenth, after suffering a broken front wing on lap 15 and having to recover to the pits for a change of nose; and Jaime Alguersuari, who made the absolute best of a two-stop strategy and exhibited fine defensive driving to finish eighth for Torro Rosso. At the beginning of the race, Alguersuari ran in close company with teammate Sebastien Buemi, so there’s something to make the strategists scratch their heads. Most of the field three-stopped. How did Alguersuari make two stops work?

(I don’t know the answer, by the way. Sorry if you’re expecting some razor-sharp insight.)

Any hopes that the new regulation preventing a special map specifically for qualifying would hobble the Red Bull cars, proved to be unfounded. Lewis Hamilton said before the race that he’d be happy to finish in the same place as he began. Unfortunately, he wasn’t happy - as he ended one place back from his start position. Quite why the McLaren cars of both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were so average over the 57 laps of the Valencia circuit, seems a mystery.

Greatest McLaren entertainment came from Lewis’s radio conversation. Upon his engineer informing him of high rear tyre temperatures on lap 30, he declared, ‘I can’t go any slower.’ Lap 40, with Massa in his Ferrari closing at 1 second a lap, Lewis insisted, ‘This is as fast as I can go!’ Love your attitude, Lewis. You only have one speed: your fastest. Quite obviously disappointed by McLaren’s pace, Lewis was, at least, pleased to reach the end of this one.

Teammate Jenson Button’s comment, ‘Wow, that wasn’t an exciting race, was it?’ echoed my thoughts.

Sebastian Vettel drove a perfect race from lights to flag and he and his Red Bull team seem to be the only ones still excited by his customary brilliance. Fernando Alonso whipped his Ferrari to a commendable second – which was great for the Spanish crowd – but never threatened Sebastian. I suppose we ought to think ourselves lucky that whoever was in second place during the race, Alonso or Mark Webber (Red Bull), managed to keep Vettel in sight. But nobody got close enough to kick his backside, as Jenson did in Canada two weeks ago.

The hardest racing took place in the midfield between drivers such as Paul di Resta (Force India), Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez (both Sauber), Vitaly Petrov (Renault), Rubens Barrichello and Pastor Maldonado (both Williams), all of whom finished, unfortunately, out of the points.

I’d like to give a mention to Adrian Sutil (Force India) and Nick Heidfeld (Renault), who hung on grimly to gain ninth and tenth places respectively. It’s great to see Force India creeping up the grid again this year, after a lukewarm 2010.

This race must have been remarkable for something ... oh, yes. It’s the first time that 24 cars have finished a grand prix and only the fourth time in history that there were no retirements. Which is probably why the backmarkers were the unfortunate recipients of so many unfriendly waves as they were lapped! And lapped. And lapped again.
The venue looks fantastic, visually a strange mix of beautiful blue Mediterranean sea, big yachts, roads, beaches and industry. It’s a street circuit, the walls are close, the racing closer. What is it that this circuit lacks? Maybe undulation? It does seem awfully flat – in both meanings of the word.

But more likely it lacks character and quirks. No Monaco magic – just Valencia vanilla. By Sue Moorcroft

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