There seems to be no stopping to Sebastian Vettel’s winning streak this season as he continued to dominate the track and won the European Grand Prix comfortably.
Starting from pole position, the World Champion held onto his lead throughout the race by cruising ahead of his rivals.
<< Red Bull's F1 driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany celebrates after winning the European Formula One Grand Prix at the Valencia racetrack, in Valencia, Spain, on Sunday, June 26, 2011.
Though Ferrari's Fernando Alonso tried to outdo Vettel in front of his home fans in Valencia, the Spaniard had to settle for a deserving second place. With his sixth win in this season, Vettel extends his Championship lead to 186 points, a huge 77-point margin over a tie between Jenson Button and Mark Webber.
There was a tough battle for the second place between Alonso and Red Bull's Webber, which was eventually won by Alonso. Though Webber started the race from P2 behind his team-mate, Alonso's fantastic pit-stop strategy helped him to better the Australian, who faced some gearbox issues.
The gap between the first three places and the others was significant as McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who struggled with his tyres, finished fourth and was close to 50 seconds behind the leader. Ferrari's Felipe Massa lost time after a slow pit-stop and managed to finish at P5. After winning the Canadian GP, McLaren's Jenson Button was unable to pick up his pace today and could only manage a sixth place finish.
Mercedes GP had a disappointing day as Nico Rosberg finished at seventh place, while his team-mate Michael Schumacher was far behind in P17. Schumi lost time after he had to change his broken front wing following a collision with Nick Heidfeld on Lap 16.
It was a great race by Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso, who climbed 10 places from a P18 start to finish at eighth place. Alguersuari faced tough challenge from Force India's Adrian Sutil during the closing laps of the race but Sutil could not outpace the Spaniard and finished behind him in ninth place. Renault's Heidfeld took the last point of the race by finishing at P10.
Sauber's Sergio Perez finished outside the points zone at P11, ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the Williams. Sebastien Buemi of Toro Rosso took P13, while Paul di Resta of Force India finished at P14, ahead of Vitaly Petrov of Renault. All the 24 drivers managed to finish the race, which was largely incident free. The last two places in the race were occupied by the two HRTs with Vitantonio Liuzzi finishing ahead of his team-mate Narain Karthikeyan.
With another win in the season at the European Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel, who will celebrate his 24th birthday on July 3, gets closer to clinching his second World Championship. As we move into the next race of the season at the legendary Silverstone Circuit, Vettel and Red Bull would be hoping to finish on top at the British Grand Prix as well!
