Sebastian Vettel resumed his domination of the 2011 Formula 1 season after his Montreal blip, by winning the European Grand Prix in Valencia with ease.
The world champion broke his rivals’ challenge with an early charge that saw him establish a three-second lead within a few laps and then nurse a similar advantage for the rest of the afternoon, before a push for fastest lap in the final stint took his winning margin up to 10.8 seconds.
Fernando Alonso finished a very encouraging second for Ferrari in front of his home crowd. Both Ferraris had jumped Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren at the start, with the flying Felipe Massa dodging between Hamilton and Alonso, then trying to get down the inside of Mark Webber for second. But as he had to back out of the move, Alonso went around the outside of his team-mate and took third.
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Running longer at most pitstops did not help Massa, who fell back to fifth in the end behind Hamilton, closing on the McLaren late on without ever threatening.
Montreal winner Jenson Button had a very low-key afternoon. He was passed by Nico Rosberg at the start and by the time he had dived back ahead of the Mercedes with a bold move at Turn 2 on lap six, the rest of the leaders were out of reach. A later KERS fault ensured Button would finish a lonely sixth. Yahoo! Eurosport UK
Rosberg finished seventh for Mercedes ahead of Jaime Alguersuari, whose seat at Toro Rosso is in question. Adrian Sutil of Force India was ninth and Renault’s Nick Heidfeld was 10th.
Sergio Perez’s first race since crashing at Monaco yielded an 11th-place finish as Sauber opted for a one-stop strategy.
The season continues July 10 with the British GP. ESPN F1
Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired 1 1 Sebastian VettelRBR-Renault Winner 2 5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari +10.8 secs 3 2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault +27.2 secs 4 3 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +46.1 secs 5 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari +51.7 secs 6 4 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes +60.0 secs 7 8 Nico Rosberg Mercedes +98.0 secs 8 19 Jaime AlguersuariSTR-Ferrari +1 Lap 9 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes +1 Lap 10 9 Nick Heidfeld Renault +1 Lap 11 17 Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari +1 Lap 12 11 Rubens BarrichelloWilliams-Cosworth +1 Lap 13 18 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari +1 Lap 14 15 Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes +1 Lap 15 10 Vitaly Petrov Renault +1 Lap 16 16 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari +1 Lap 17 7 Michael SchumacherMercedes +1 Lap 18 12 Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Cosworth +1 Lap 19 20 Heikki KovalainenLotus-Renault +2 Laps 20 21 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Renault +2 Laps 21 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth +2 Laps 22 25 Jerome d'AmbrosioVirgin-Cosworth +2 Laps 23 23 Vitantonio LiuzziHRT-Cosworth +3 Laps 24 22 Narain KarthikeyanHRT-Cosworth +3 Laps
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