Patronise F1

Round 12 of the F1 world championship saw the drivers take to the streets of Valencia for the European GP, and despite the predidtions of carnage, chaos and safety car periods, the whole thing passed annoyingly quietly. Felipe Massa was at his dominant best to take a victory that only ever looked like being under threat from some over-fussy stewards, while Kimi Raikkonen's nightmare run continued.

The Valencia track was one that had promised some excitement throughout the weekend, but in the end it completely failed to deliver, with Felipe Massa coasting to victory from pole position around the streets of Spain's third biggest city, avoiding a penalty for a pit lane infraction on the way to picking up his fourth win of the season. The win also elevated him back to second in the world championship, now some six points behind Lewis Hamilton, who diligently followed Massa home to retain his championship lead. It was difficult to find anyone who really cared all that much though, to be honest, as the European Grand Prix made the Hungarian event three weeks ago look positively thrilling compared to this dire potter around F1's newest circuit.

Not that Massa will care that much, for him it was a win that made up for the heartache three weeks ago, when his Ferrari engine expired almost within sight of the chequered flag at the Hungaroring, and a win that was never in question after he executed a perfect start to lead the field away from the grid. Alongside, Hamilton struggled to get traction off the dusty surface, and was nearly swamped by Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber, but he managed to fend of the Pole's attack. Just behind that fight, Kimi Raikkonen lost out to Heikki Kovalainen as well, as the field eased their way through the first lap.

Despite predictions of doom, gloom and calamity, there was only one casualty on the opening tour, former champion Fernando Alonso being unceremoniously driven into by Kazuki Nakajima's Williams-Toyota as the field concertinaed up into the squiggly bits midway round the lap. Both cars made it back to the pits, Nakajima's front wing was repaired and he was sent out again, but Fernando Alonso's day was done at his second home race of the year, as Nakas had well and truly destroyed the rear of his car. The other Renault was in the wars to a lesser extent, as Nelson Piquet Jr (who had a naff afternoon) tangled with David Coulthard.

As Massa began to pull away at the front, and the race settled down into the disagreeable groove that blighted the 57 laps, the only real entertainment was Coulthard's rubbish recovery drive, which ended when he tangled with Giancarlo Fisichella's Force India in what was his 342nd crash in a race this year. He kept going, but was last for pretty much the rest of the afternoon, and even the most ardent of DC fans (i.e. Martin Brundle) must quietly be looking forward to him finally calling it a day in six races time.

The field ran in a never-changing order for the opening laps, Massa leading Hamilton, Kubica, Kovalainen, Raikkonen and the impressive Sebastian Vettel, while there was cheer for Williams as Nico Rosberg ran in a deserved, if slightly uncompetitive 8th place after nobbling the heavy Nick Heidfeld off the line. The first round of pit stops were completed, but even this sure-fire way of jumbling the order up a bit failed in Valencia, with Jarno Trulli leapfrogging Sebastian Vettel for 6th the only real talking point of note, although Timo Glock managed to bring himself into play after a poor qualifying effort by running a massively long first stint on a one stop strategy, and once he pitted on lap 31, he rejoined in 9th place and very much in the scrap for the lower points places.

The drama finally arrived late on, and revolved around Ferrari's second stops for it's pair of drivers, and in particular their clever gizmo now used to release the cars from the pit box. The Italian team have pioneered a semi-automatic traffic light system, as opposed to the more traditional (and less professional looking) "bloke holding a lollipop", but this system firstly released Felipe Massa out into the path of Adrian Sutil, the pair of them narrowly avoiding a collision, and then conspired to see Raikkonen jump the lights at his final stop, dragging fuel hose and fuel man under his rear tyre as he did so. The trigger-happy Finn was clearly in a rush as he battled Kovalainen (who had pitted on the same lap) for 4th, but was punished by dropping back behind Jarno Trulli into 6th place.

Raikkonen's recovery drive may have added some much needed entertainment, with the reigning champion looking to have woken up just before his stop after spending the first 43 laps of the race dawdling about in the disinterested way that seems to have characterised his drives of late. But alas, we were denied even this fleeting potential for action, as Raikkonen's engine expired in a plume of smoke just one lap after his disastrous pit stop, the second such failure for Ferrari in two races. The DNF drops Raikkonen some 13 points behind Hamilton in the standings, and (slightly incredibly) the Finn has now not won a race since the Spanish Grand Prix back in late April.

There were some that were whispering that now was the time for Ferrari and Kimi to back Massa's title chances, but they may well be reminded that this time last year, Raikkonen was 20 points behind Hamilton, and he still came through to win. Though equally, he was also ahead of Massa in the standings at that point as well. Either way, unless Raikkonen improves his qualifying efforts, and consequently, his pace in the first half of the race, the whole quandary for Ferrari will resolve itself fairly easily. At this moment in time, Massa is Ferrari's title hope by default. One issue with Kimi that needs to be answered was noted by some experts (i.e. The Foot) this weekend, namely why the Finn continues to qualify a few laps heavier than Massa, deliberately wrong-footing himself for the race. Whether this decision is Ferrari's or Raikkonen's himself, it is something that could do with a bit of reassessment. If he was qualifying with a Massa-esque fuel level, he may well be grabbing front row slots rather than second or third row slots, and as a consequence, he would start finding podium finishes a lot easier to come by once again.

But we digress. Raikkonen's misery aside, the closing stages were as quiet as the rest of the race. Glock's strategy had elevated him up to the 8th place formerly held by the strategy-less Rosberg, but Kimi's retirement elevated the Williams driver back into the points, to secure the team's first points since the British Grand Prix, and Rosberg's first point since round five of the season back in Turkey. Glock was elevated to 7th for Toyota, and with team mate Jarno Trulli finishing in 5th and Renault and Red Bull enduring wretched weekends, the Japanese manufacturer have suddenly become clear favourites for the coveted 4th place in the constructors championship.

Massa took the chequered flag some five seconds clear of Hamilton, and a country mile and a half ahead of third placed Robert Kubica, but was made to wait until a few hours after the race to feel fully comfortable with his winners trophy. For reasons best left aside until judgement day, the race stewards decided to leave their investigation into Massa's near-collision in the pits until after the race, which brought up the spectre that he may be penalised time (and hence the win) some time after he stood on top of the podium. Thankfully, despite similar incidents in the GP2 race being punished with drive through penalties, he escaped with a pathetic-sounding 10,000 euro fine (experts believe it may take the Brazilian up to 23 minutes to pay this off) and kept the race win.

Kubica and BMW were delighted with 3rd, the team having something of a renaissance over the weekend to return to their pre-Montreal level of "quick, but not quite quick enough", and the Pole beat Kovalainen to the line comfortably in the end. Heikki had another nothing race and missed another podium, but perhaps that is the kind of performance they want from the number two at Team Hamilton anyway. Trulli came home next, with Vettel taking 6th after a fine weekend, highlighting again that his fight with Mark Webber next year promises to be the most intriguing of the team mate battles. Glock and Rosberg took the final points, with Nick Heidfeld 9th (on an inexplicably poor strategy, which revolved around running a very long first stint, but not one stopping) and the anonymous Sebastien Bourdais rounding out the top ten.

Despite the promise of incidents and safety cars, 17 of the 20 cars completed the race, with only Adrian Sutil actually hitting the barriers with a languid accident on lap 42, as he joined Raikkonen and Alonso in DNFing. While the likes of Toro Rosso and Williams will be delighted with their pace this weekend, Red Bull in particular will be worrying. Even a canny one stop strategy couldn't help Mark Webber finish higher than 12th, and with Webber vocal in decrying the potency of the Renault powerpack plugged in to the back of his car, it seems obvious where the problem lies there.

Overall then, the race may have been a disappointment, but the imperious drive from Massa keeps the championship close. 13 points now separate Hamilton, Massa and Raikkonen in what has become a clear three horse race, with still 60 points to play for. Next up the drivers leave the virginal track of Valencia for the history of Spa and Monza, before heading to another brand new street course in Singapore. There are plenty of twists and turns still to come in F1 2008 and, you would hope, maybe even an interesting race or two as well.

Drivers Championship Standings :
1 Hamilton 70pts, 2 Massa 64pts, 3 Raikkonen 57pts, 4 Kubica 55pts, 5 Kovalainen 43pts, 6 Heidfeld 41pts, 7 Trulli 26pts, 8 Alonso, Webber 18pts, 10 Glock 15pts, 11 Piquet Jr 13pts, 12 Barrichello 11pts, 13 Rosberg, Vettel 9pts, 15 Nakajima 8pts, 16 Coulthard 6pts, 17 Button 3pts, 18 Bourdais 2pts.

Constructors Championship Standings :
1 Ferrari 121pts, 2 McLaren 113pts, 3 BMW 96pts, 4 Toyota 41pts, 5 Renault 31pts, 6 Red Bull 24pts, 7 Williams 17pts, 8 Honda 14pts, 9 Toro Rosso 11pts.