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Formula 1 - 2011 European Grand Prix
Grand Prix---------Winning Driver-------Winning Constructor
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/200983541/p1/?18]Australian Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/201397620/p1/?16]Malaysian Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/201584480/p1/?10]Chinese Grand Prix[/link]- Lewis Hamilton - Mclaren-Mercedez
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202174432/p1/?10]Turkish Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202527780/p1/?11]Spanish Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/202661675/p1/?12]Monaco Grand Prix[/link] - Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull Racing
[link=http://boards.ign.com/formula_one_racing/b5763/203025708/p1/?10]Canadian Grand Prix[/link] - Jenson Button - Mclaren-Mercedez
Driver Standings
1 S. Vettel 161.0
2 J. Button 101.0
3 M. Webber 94.0
4 L. Hamilton 85.0
5 F. Alonso 69.0
6 F. Massa 32.0
7 V. Petrov 31.0
8 N. Heidfeld 29.0
9 M. Schumacher 26.0
10 N. Rosberg 26.0
11 K. Kobayashi 25.0
12 A. Sutil 8.0
13 S. Buemi 8.0
14 R. Barrichello 4.0
15 J. Alguersuari 4.0
16 S. Perez 2.0
17 P. di Resta 2.0
18 N. Karthikeyan 0.0
19 J. Trulli 0.0
20 T. Glock 0.0
21 J. d'Ambrosio 0.0
22 P. Maldonado 0.0
23 H. Kovalainen 0.0
24 R. Kubica 0.0
25 P. de la Rosa 0.0
26 V. Liuzzi 0.0
Constructors
1Red Bull 255.0
2McLaren 186.0
3Ferrari 101.0
4Renault 60.0
5Mercedes GP 52.0
6Sauber 27.0
7Toro Rosso 12.0
8Force India 10.0
9Williams 4.0
10Team Lotus 0.0
11Hispania Racing 0.0
12Virgin Racing 0.0
With the advent of the DRS and Pirelli tyres, the Valencia Grand Prix has no fears for us now. Before, it was the kind of deadly dull processional race that gave F1 a bad name and on everybody's wish list to disappear instead of the race at Istanbul. Now, it has all kinds of racing opportunities.
Until now, the harbourside circuit of Valencia failed on three different levels. It's nowhere near as glamorous as Monaco (docks and warehouses rarely are), it's not as challenging as the street circuits of Singapore or Montreal and it's not as exciting as a normal race track. But if you can add in the possibility of overtaking, that last one is solved.
And at least it has a passionate crowd that will come along to support Fernando Alonso, which you can't say for quite a few races on the calendar. This year we might see the Valencia GP transformed, although with the parlous state of the Spanish economy, it will probably be its least well attended.
The drama of recent years has been injected by the occasional Safety Car. Last year Lewis Hamilton was exceptionally naughty and sprinted out of the pits failing to line up behind the Safety Car, but only by 10 meters or so. He was penalised, but the penalty didn't drop him a position and thus we had one of the funniest radio transmissions of all time as a result.
Fernando Alonso, who had patiently lined up behind the Safety Car like a good boy was outraged by this turn of events - he got on the radio to his team in the kind of spluttery rage we once saw him venting at the Renault team for failing to move team-mate Fisichella out of his way in Australia. "Where was Ham-il-ton and where is Ham-il-ton?" he demanded. His engineer Andrea Stella had to radio back carefully, "He WAS second...and he IS second." Sadly all we got from Fernando after that was silence and we just had to imagine the tiny temper going on.
In fact he was lucky; after the race he accused the stewards of allowing the race to be manipulated and unlike Hamilton's rant in Monaco this year, there was no trip to the stewards' office to apologise afterwards.
On the face of it, he has the opportunity this year to get his own back, the Ferrari was working incredibly well in Montreal and there's no reason why it shouldn't shine in Valencia. In qualifying at least, because there'll be the same supersoft Pirelli Option tyre that Alonso took to within a gnat's chuff of pole position.
The big area of doubt surrounds Pirelli's 'medium' Prime tyre that they are introducing for Valencia. How this works around the streets with each team's set up is anybody's guess. At the Spanish Grand Prix Ferrari flew on the soft tyres but once the hard tyre was introduced they suffered badly. Fernando will positively not want this to happen in front of his loyal Asturian contingent for two home races in a row.
Similarly, Mclaren will not want Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton to get up close and personal for two races in a row and it is really up to Lewis Hamilton to make clean overtaking moves and not go for stupid ones. On his team-mate or anyone else.
Lewis has had some advice from people like David Coulthard and Niki Lauda after Montreal and love him or loathe him Lauda's old premise about imagining that your car is enveloped in cotton wool for the first seven laps and not letting anyone get near you to cause an accident is one that he could take on board.
Hamilton might have won that race at a canter if he'd stuck around - he always changes tyres later than Jenson.
Thinking about David Coulthard and his constant reference to "Mur-errrs". The Murr-errs on F1 cars have hardly changed since the 1950s, isn't it about time that drivers had something a bit more sophisticated to see what was coming up from behind? There is so much invention and brainpower that goes into circumventing the rules and the intention of the rules, surely someone must have got a better solution to a bit of mirrored glass?
If you consider that Ford Focuses are now parallel parking themselves automatically, you'd think F1 could come up with a high tech solution for a situation that can potentially ruin their races. Or is it that they prefer NOT to see what's behind them and claim ignorance.
Certainly with a steering wheel of knobs and dials - magic paddle latches and the like, they could do without the kind of heads up visor display that fighter pilots have, but given what went on in Canada between Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, some attention might be focused on it. With rear-scanning infra-red devices, drivers would be able to see regardless of spray.
Jenson May have looked in his mirrors in Montreal, but as we saw with Brundle's rear-facing camera in Australia all those years ago - Senna's car comes out of nowhere like the shark in jaws.
Of course install it and you'll get post-race comments on the lines of: "Lewis wasn't showing up on my visor display", but it's a thought. They should also have a 105% rule introduced. Those cars that do not qualify within 105% of pole have to install double-sized (F1 caravan) mirrors. And actually look in them, Timo.
Sebastian Vettel, despite his late race wobble in Canada is still favourite for pole position and another race win. Very little is likely to derail the Red Bull juggernaut until we see the result of the off-throttle/engine mapping change at the British GP.
Though it would be nice to see the applecart upset for the sake of sustained interest in the Championship through the season...don't hold your breath.
Even if Red Bull do suffer a drop in performance, this year they have a clear No.1 and No.2 driver and Vettel won't drop points to Mark Webber, especially when Webbo has said he'd like to stay on for 2012 and has no contract signed.
Further down the grid it will be interesting to see if Nico Rosberg can start getting the better of Michael Schumacher again, whether Kamui Kobayashi can repeat his epic European GP of 2010, whether Sergio Perez is fit, whether Nick Heidfeld can outqualify Vitaly Petrov again and whether David Coulthard can name him correctly for an entire race.
And Heikki Kovalainen will be looking anxiously in his mur-errs for a fast approaching Red Bull...
