Valencia & Engine Mapping

Well, that really worked, didn't it?

Lets hope the off-throttle exhaust restrictions have more of an effect at Sliverstone. That said, in a post-race interview, Martin Whitmarsh hinted that it could hurt McLaren as much as anyone...which is worrying, to say the least.

Anyway, on to the race. On the downside, it was the most "boring" and predictable race of the season, so far. On the upside, it was the most exciting Valencia GP ever!

Despite claims from some quarters that the recent rule changes have made racing too artificial, there is something to be said for them. They certainly livened up Monaco and actually made Valencia watchable, if not exactly thrilling.

Disappointingly, qualifying ended in an all-too-familiar fashion, with Red Bull locking out the front row.

However, there was an immediate shake-up at the start, as poor starts by the McLaren drivers, let both Ferraris through. Even Rosberg got past Button in the opening stages...though Jenson later rectified this by aggressively out-braking Nico.

Alonso once again was on the pace of the Red Bulls, hanging on to Webber's coat tails for some time, before executing a smart overtake. They swapped places a couple of times, thanks to smart pit strategies from both Ferrari and Red Bull, with the Spaniard eventually coming out on top. Massa would have finished higher up, but for a bungled pit-stop. Despite leading the charge at the start and darting ahead of Alonso, as the race went on, he seemed to lack the aggression and pace of his team mate, but still managed a respectable 5th place.

It was a similar story with Mark Webber, who seemed to struggle with his tyres more than Vettel, leaving him vulnerable to Alonso. To his credit he did fight back and spent most of the race duelling with Nando...which was the most entertaining action up front. Hamilton also suffered badly, rapidly ruining his tyres in his efforts to close the gap to the Ferraris. He did provide the comedic moments of the race, however, being advised by his race engineer to first look after his tyres, then to push on, responding with "I can't drive any slower" and then "I can't go any faster".

He really needs to listen to his engineers and learn tyre management. He may not like it, but he's going to have to learn to deal with it.

Button did what he usually does when a win isn't on the cards and drove smoothly and unfussily. Both drivers complained of lack of rear grip, which hopefully McLaren will have addressed by the time practice starts at Silverstone. Given this was another exercise in damage limitation, I don't supposde they'll be that disappointed. Hamilton will probably be relived to just finish in the points.

While the race did seem processional and boring at times, due to the lack of action at the front, there was an awful lot of action going in in the midfield and towards the back, with numerous tussles involving the Renaults, Saubers, Toro Rossos and others. Apparently this was only the 3rd race in the history of F1 with NO retirements. The amount of traffic made things harder for the front runners, but sadly failed to create more attacking opportunities and shake things up at the front. Everyone up to 8th placed Algeuersari got lapped - good drive from Jaime! DRS seemed to work reasonable well, making things easier, but not too easy.

Despite Mercedes suffering with tyre wear again, Rosberg did well to finish 7th, outshining Schumacher yet again. It was nice to see Sutil giving Force India a points finish and Heidfeld went some way towards making amends for crashing out in Canada by bringing his Renault home in 10th.

Overall, Valencia was never going to measure up to Canada for excitement, but it was a lot better than it has been in previous years. Unfortunately, it also confirmed everyones' worst fears...that there is a LOT of catching up to be done, before Vettel is in any danger of being dethroned.