“It wasn’t the easiest way so far but what happened, happened,” Vettel said in the postrace press conference. “We cannot change it, but it is good to be back and on a circuit where we didn’t expect to be that strong, to be quick enough all the time in the race to slightly pull away, find the gap, and then carry the car home. It is good to get a lot of points. It is good for the championship.”
Red Bull’s other driver, Mark Webber, had an horrific crash, flipping in the air and landing upside down. He was completely uninjured. Vettel addressed this at the end of the press conference.
“Most important of today is the fact that Mark [Webber] had quite a big shunt but he is fine. It shows that the cars get safer and safer but still there is a lot of risk. I asked on the radio, and I am happy to hear he is all good.”
Sebastian Vettel nearly lost his lead on the first lap. The Red Bull driver made a good start, but McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton made a great start from third, passing Mark Webber and challenging Vettel going into the second corner.
Hamilton got his nose inside under braking, but didn’t have enough room. The two cars touched twice exiting the corner, damaging Hamilton’s front wing.
Hamilton described the incident on Formula1.com: “Into Turn One, I was very close to Seb Vettel, I went for the gap, I out-braked him and we went into the corner side-by-side. He gave me room, but we touched and the contact damaged my front wing.”
Vettel showed once again that, once it is out in front, the Red Bull chassis is the class of the field. By Lap 8 he had a four second gap on the field.
Mark Webber in the other Red Bull had a horrible start, getting passed by Hamilton and both Ferraris. By the end of the lap, Webber had fallen to ninth.
Red Bull called Webber into the pits on Lap 8, hoping to get him out on fresh tires and out of traffic. Webber rejoined in 19th place and started charging through the field.
Webber Wrecks
On Lap 10, Webber had a frightening collision while trying to pass the Lotus of Heikki Kovalainnen. Kovalainnen went right, then left, to let Webber by, but the Red Bull driver committed to passing on the left.
Webber, moving much faster, found the Lotus right in front of him. The Red Bull launched into the air, flipped backward, and crashed down upside down before bouncing upright and slamming the tire wall, still at a very high speed.
Webber walked away uninjured, a testament to the safety technology of modern Formula One cars.
“I was going a lot faster than Heikki [Kovalainnen] and then a long, long way before the braking point he braked—about 80 meters before—and at that point I’m a passenger,” Webber said on Formula1.com. “I lost some points, but in the end when you’re up there, you’re not worried about points, I was worried that I was okay and ready for Silverstone [the next F1 race]. The hits were pretty hard but it’s good that I am okay.”
The crash brought out the safety car, which set off a wave of pit stops and various strategy maneuvers.
The Ferraris pitted from third and fourth, but re-entered 10th and 12th. Schumacher pitted later than the rest, trying to get in and come out ahead of the field. He missed it by a tenth of a second, hitting a red light at the end of pit lane, and had to wait while the whole field went past. Since he was so far back, Mercedes called Schumacher in again to swap to the hard tires, so he could finish the race without another stop. This dropped him to 21st.
Race stewards decided a whole string of drivers—Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica, Vitaly Petrov, Adrian Sutil, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Sebastien Buemi and Pedro de la Rosa—might have violated safety car regulations on the restart.
Hamilton was deemed to have passed the safety car, and was given a drive-through penalty.
Button, Barrichello, Hulkenberg, Kubica, Petrov, Sutil, Liuzzi, Buemi, and de la Rosa were all penalized with five seconds added to their race times, for speeding while the safety car was out.
Kamui Kobayashi in the Sauber, stayed out through the caution period, which put him in third place. He stayed there, holding up the entire field, until Lap 53. This totally changed the character of the race; it allowed Hamilton and Vettel to open a huge gap on the field, and allowed Hamilton to serve his drive-through penalty without losing track position.
Had the field not been held up, Hamilton would have lost several places due to his penalty, Button would have been second, and who knows who might have been able to challenge for the podium?
Instead, Hamilton pulled into the pits to serve his penalty and got back on track just ahead of Kobayashi, well behind Vettel but still safely in second place. This gave the race to Vettel, and gave Hamilton second, despite Hamilton gaining second by pitting early by passing the safety car.
Hamilton was not impressed by the complaints of the teams—principally Ferrari—which said that the penalty was insufficient.
“When the team told me I had a drive-through penalty, I made time by pushing as hard as I could, and was able to increase the gap a bit to the guys behind,” Hamilton said on Formula1.com. “I took my penalty and I came out second. I don’t see how that’s unfair—it’s racing, and those are the rules, and we all have to accept them.”
Stewards could have given Hamilton a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, which would have actually penalized Hamilton. The case can be made either way: should the stewards dole out penalties based on the state of the race and the positions of the other cars, or should stewards dispense penalties based on the violation, regardless of the effect on the race? In any case, Hamilton’s penalty cost him a chance at a win, but kept him in the lead in the Drivers’ Championship.
The Rest of the Race
While the overall outcome of the race was essentially decided halfway through, there was still drama back in the pack.
Michael Schumacher made yet another pit stop, got soft tires, and came out setting fastest laps. Both Mercedes drivers had been warned throughout the race that their front brakes were overheated. On lap 23 Rosberg was radioed that the situation was “critical on brakes—we really aren’t going to make it to the end.” Despite this, Schumacher pushed hard, fighting his way back to 16th by the end. Rosberg finished 12th.
On Lap 37, Timo Glock collided with Bruno Senna, forcing both to pit for repairs. Glock was penalized 20 seconds on his next race time for ignoring blue flags (overtaking warnings.)
On Lap 51 Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams blew its motor while in 10th place, costing Hulkenberg a championship point and ending Williams’ hope for two cars in the top 10. Rubens Barrichello still managed to finish fourth, the best for Williams this season.
Kobayashi finally pitted on Lap 53, dropping him from third to ninth. When he came out on soft tires and with almost empty tanks, he was faster than most of the other cars. On Lap 56, Kobayashi managed to pass Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso for eighth, and on the final turn of the final lap, Kobayashi forced his way past Torro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi to take seventh, his best finish and the best for the team.
“Before the race we had decided to use separate tire strategies for Pedro [teammate Pedro de la Rosa] and me,” Kobayashi told Formula1.com. “I started on the harder ones and didn’t pit when everybody else did. It was great racing there at the front, but it was not easy either, because I had Jenson Button close behind me all the time.
“After my pit stop I had only four laps to make use of my fresh tires. Of course it was a risk to overtake Alonso and Buemi. If it hadn’t worked out and I had crashed I would have been in trouble.”
Hamilton retains his lead in the championship by six points over teammate Jenson Button, while the win elevates Vettel to third and back in the running, while Webber drops to fourth.
The next Formula One Grand Prix will be the British Grand Prix, Sunday July 11, at the famous Silvertstone circuit. Tickets can be purchased online at the official Formula1.com ticket web page, lodging can be booked at Formula1.com’s Hotels page, and package deals are available at the Formula1.com Tickets and Travel page.
| 2010 Drivers Championship Points | |||
|
| Driver | Team | Points |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 127 |
| 2 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 121 |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | RBR-Renault | 115 |
| 4 | Mark Webber | RBR-Renault | 103 |
| 5 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 98 |
| 6 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 83 |
| 7 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes GP | 75 |
| 8 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 67 |
| 9 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes GP | 34 |
| 10 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 31 |
| 2010 Formula 1 Telefónica Grand Prix of Europe | ||||||
|
| # | Driver | Team | Laps | Time/Retired | Pts |
| 1 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | RBR-Renault | 57 | 1:40:29.571 | 25 |
| 2 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren-Mercedes | 57 | +5.0 secs | 18 |
| 3 | 1 | Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 57 | +12.6 secs | 15 |
| 4 | 9 | Rubens Barrichello | Williams-Cosworth | 57 | +25.6 secs | 12 |
| 5 | 11 | Robert Kubica | Renault | 57 | +27.1 secs | 10 |
| 6 | 14 | Adrian Sutil | Force India-Mercedes | 57 | +30.1 secs | 8 |
| 7 | 23 | Kamui Kobayashi | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 57 | +30.9 secs | 6 |
| 8 | 8 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 57 | +32.8 secs | 4 |
| 9 | 16 | Sebastien Buemi | STR-Ferrari | 57 | +36.2 secs | 2 |
| 10 | 4 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes GP | 57 | +44.3 secs | 1 |
| 11 | 7 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 57 | +46.6 secs |
|
| 12 | 22 | Pedro de la Rosa | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 57 | +47.4 secs |
|
| 13 | 17 | Jaime Alguersuari | STR-Ferrari | 57 | +48.2 secs |
|
| 14 | 12 | Vitaly Petrov | Renault | 57 | +48.2 secs |
|
| 15 | 3 | Michael Schumacher | Mercedes GP | 57 | +48.8 secs |
|
| 16 | 15 | Vitantonio Liuzzi | Force India-Mercedes | 57 | +50.8 secs |
|
| 17 | 25 | Lucas di Grassi | Virgin-Cosworth | 56 | +1 Lap |
|
| 18 | 20 | Karun Chandhok | HRT-Cosworth | 55 | +2 Laps |
|
| 19 | 24 | Timo Glock | Virgin-Cosworth | 55 | +2 Laps |
|
| 20 | 21 | Bruno Senna | HRT-Cosworth | 55 | +2 Laps |
|
| 21 | 18 | Jarno Trulli | Lotus-Cosworth | 53 | +4 Laps |
|
| Ret | 10 | Nico Hulkenberg | Williams-Cosworth | 49 | Exhaust |
|
| Ret | 19 | Heikki Kovalainen | Lotus-Cosworth | 8 | Accident |
|
| Ret | 6 | Mark Webber | RBR-Renault | 8 | Accident |
|
