Vettel wins, Webber unhurt in Valencia crash

Sebastian Vettel declared on the radio he is “back on track” after winning Sunday’s European grand prix.

“Germany one, England nil,” grinned third-placed Jenson Button, before leaving the FIA press conference to watch Germany score the first goal for real as the countries battle for World Cup survival in South Africa.

With his win, pole sitter Vettel snatches third place in the world championship – behind both McLarens – from his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber, who escaped unhurt from a frightening backflip crash.

Caused by the Australian striking the rear of Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus, the crash mirrored one during the earlier GP2 race, in which Josef Kral was hospitalised.

Some figures, including David Coulthard, slammed Kovalainen’s decision to race Webber’s much faster car, but Lotus technical boss Mike Gascoyne said on Twitter that the Finn was “pissed off with Webber”.

“For all those saying we should not have defended from Webber, when it is for position on track we race,” Gascoyne insisted. “Always.”

The race was also controversial for other reasons. Hamilton finished second after a drive-through penalty for overtaking the safety car, while Fernando Alonso did not make the illegal pass and finished just ninth.

“It is really unfair, it is like no penalty,” Alonso’s race engineer Andrea Stella told the angry Spaniard by radio during the race.

And nine drivers – Button, both Williams, both Renaults, both Force Indias, Sebastien Buemi and Pedro de la Rosa – are under investigation by the stewards for driving too fast on their pitstop in-lap while the safety car was out.

If penalised, Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi – finishing behind four of the investigated drivers – could be the big winner, after finishing seventh with an unique race strategy that saw him make a very late single pitstop.

By performing impressive late-race passes on Fernando Alonso and Buemi, meanwhile, the Japanese also rekindled memories of his stirring late debut for Toyota last year.

Provisional Race Result - 27 June 2010

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Grid	Pts
1	5	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	57	Winner	1	25
2	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	57	+5.0 secs	3	18
3	1	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	57	+7.6 secs	7	15
4	9	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	57	+20.6 secs	9	12
5	11	Robert Kubica	Renault	57	+22.1 secs	6	10
6	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	57	+25.1 secs	13	8
7	23	Kamui Kobayashi	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	57	+30.9 secs	18	6
8	16	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	57	+31.2 secs	11	4
9	8	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	57	+32.8 secs	4	2
10	22	Pedro de la Rosa	BMW Sauber-Ferrari	57	+42.4 secs	16	1
11	12	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	57	+43.2 secs	10
12	4	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	57	+44.3 secs	12
13	15	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	57	+45.8 secs	14
14	7	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	57	+46.6 secs	5
15	17	Jaime Alguersuari	STR-Ferrari	57	+48.2 secs	17
16	3	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	57	+48.8 secs	15
17	25	Lucas di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	56	+1 Lap	21
18	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	55	+2 Laps	22
19	20	Karun Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	55	+2 Laps	23
20	21	Bruno Senna	HRT-Cosworth	55	+2 Laps	24
21	18	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	53	+4 Laps	19
Ret	10	Nico Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	49	+8 Laps	8
Ret	19	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	8	Accident damage	20
Ret	6	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	8	Accident	2

© 2010, www.fantasyracings.com. All rights reserved. The total or partial reproduction of text, photographs or illustrations is not permitted in any form. Copyright by F1 Teams Media Departaments, (GMM) and (CIAM)

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