2010 EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX

Background

The 2010 European Grand Prix was the ninth out of 19 scheduled rounds of the 2010 Formula One World Championship , and was held on 27 June at the Valencia Street Circuit in Valencia , Spain. Tyre supplier Bridgestone brought two types of tyre to the race; two soft compounds (super soft "options" and medium "primes"). The super soft tyres were identified by a green stripe on their side-walls.

Race

Some teams made modifications to their cars in preparation for the event. Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault introduced diffuser designs similar to the Red Bull RB6 . Ferrari's design largely changed the shape of their exhaust system, and introduced a new gearbox case for Felipe Massa 's car to raise the pick-up points of its rear suspension to help him adjust to the changes. They constructed a larger radiator to deal with the additional heat. Mercedes elected not to bring a new gearbox casing,... Lotus celebrated the 500th Grand Prix for the brand. For this occasion, the team changed the usual decoration of its car, including the number 500 between laurels on both sides of the rear of the Lotus T127 . The family of Colin Chapman , the founder of the original Team Lotus , attended this celebration. Vettel began to pull away from the rest of the field. Trulli made a pit stop for a replacement nose cone at the start of the second lap after another car made contact with the rear end of his car and his front wing was removed. Webber battled Hülkenberg for eighth position but was unable to overtake the latter. Trulli made a second pit stop on the fifth lap to allow his mechanics to rectify a problem with his car's gearbox and turned off his engine to allow for repairs to oc... On lap nine, Webber attempted to pass Kovalainen for 17th, by running in his slipstream at 190 miles per hour (310 km/h) on the main straight but the latter appeared to brake earlier than Webber expected, and the Red Bull made contact with Kovalainen's right-rear wheel, sending him airborne. He struck an advertising hoarding and somersaulted. Webber's car landed on its nose, careered into the turn 12 run-off area at high speed and collided with a tyre barrier. Webber was unh... The two Ferrari cars and the Renault of Kubica were the first to queue up behind the safety car, while the rest of the field had enough notice to divert to the pitlane for their first stop. The significance of these events was that both Vettel and Hamilton were able to make their first stops before their advantage over the rest of the field was nullified by catching the safety car, while Alonso, Massa and Kubica fell down the order. Hamilton's stop was for a replacement front wing. The safety ca... Alonso made a complaint about Hamilton and asked his team to work with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile race director Charlie Whiting to discuss the issue with the safety car. Massa attempted to pass Liuzzi around the outside heading into turn 17 but Liuzzi turned right to defend the position. Shortly afterwards, Massa made a slight mistake which allowed Alguersuari to close the gap. Hamilton started to conserve fuel and prepare for a late attack on lap 20. On the following lap, it ... Vettel extended his lead to 13 seconds when Hamilton lost time due to struggling to pass the lapped cars of Senna and Glock. Glock attempted to pass Senna around the outside heading into the first corner but was unable to move ahead. On lap 37, Glock again attempted to overtake Senna but the two cars collided. The incident caused a puncture on Glock's car that very nearly threw him into a wall and forced him to make a pit stop, though his crew were not ready for him and he lost sev... The top three drivers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference. Vettel said it was good to accumulate a large number of points in the championship battle and was "very pleased" with his victory. He said it was not the easiest win he had and he felt satisfied to win on a track where his team did not expect to be dominant. Hamilton stated that he felt it was "very positive" that he remained the Drivers' Championship leader and his t... Webber said he had minor cuts and bruises after his lap nine accident with Kovalainen. He said he was unsure about Kovalainen's mindset and thought that the driver would allow him to pass. Nevertheless, he did not apportion blame to Kovalainen and said the difference between the braking capabilities of both cars caught him out. Webber later admitted that he misjudged how early Kovalainen would brake for the corner but felt the latter had moved more than once while defending the pos... Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Buemi, de la Rosa, Petrov, Liuzzi, and Hülkenberg were all issued with five second-time penalties by the stewards for exceeding the safety car-in lap time. The finishing positions of Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil and Liuzzi were unchanged, but the penalty issued to Buemi moved him from eighth to ninth, allowing Alonso to finish eighth. Rosberg inherited tenth position as de la Rosa moved to twelfth in the final race classification. Glock was awarded a 20-... The result extended Hamilton's lead in the World Drivers' Championship over Button to six points. Vettel's victory elevated him from fifth to third, 12 points behind Hamilton. Webber's retirement dropped him to fourth, while Alonso's eighth-place finish demoted him from fourth to fifth. McLaren increased their advantage over Red Bull in the Constructors' Championship to 30 points ahead. Ferrari remained in third place, while Renault reduced the points deficit to Mercedes in the battle for ... Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold . Notes:

Qualifying

Buemi was the fastest driver not to advance into the final session; his best lap time of 1.38:586 was half a second off Vettel's pace in the second session. He was disappointed as he had Barrichello ahead of him driving towards turn 25 on his final timed lap which slowed Buemi and lost him two tenths of a second. Rosberg took 12th position. Sutil had no grip in his car and qualified in 13th. His teammate Liuzzi clinched 14th place after an oversteer and struggled on his car'... The fastest lap in each of the three sessions is denoted in bold .