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European GP. Race Review. Rubens Barrichello took his first F1 victory in five years of racing at the European Grand Prix to get Brawn GP back to winning ways, storming to the chequered flag after Lewis Hamilton dropped back following a pit stop blunder.

In another dire race at the unloved Valencia street track, Barrichello's first win since the Chinese Grand Prix in 2004 at least added a nice touch to the final result. Coming one race after his good friend Felipe Massa was injured by debris from his car, Barrichello took the win with a get well soon message to his fellow Brazilian on his helmet.

For a while, it looked like McLaren and Lewis Hamilton would scupper Barrichello's hopes. Hamilton and his team mate Heikki Kovalainen led away from the start, and although Barrichello leapfrogged the Finn comfortably at the first stops and closed up on Hamilton during the second stint, Hamilton still looked set to challenge for a second win in a row.

But his hopes were dashed at his final stop, when Hamilton entered his pit box while his front tyres were still sitting in their blankets. He was delayed as his mechanics dawdled around and fitted his new rubber, but too much time was lost, and Barrichello eased into a comfortable lead after his own stop to coast to victory, with Hamilton left to take second place, ahead of a quiet Kimi Raikkonen, who secured his second podium in a row for Ferrari.

McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh said after the race that Hamilton would have lost the race either way, given Barrichello's pace compared to Hamilton, but either way, the botched stop robbed us of the chance of some excitement in the battle for the lead. Victory saw Barrichello jump back into championship contention, and the Brazilian now sits second in the points standings. In comparison, his team mate Jenson Button could only limp to 7th place after dropping places at the start, having to cede 8th place to Mark Webber early on after cutting a chicane while fighting with the Aussie, mucking up a pass on Alonso, and generally struggling on pace.

The botched stop also robbed us of some excitement anywhere on the track. Once again, this was a race where any intrigue or interest had to be taken from desperately scanning sector times on live timing, or guessing pit stop strategy, or from trying to control your Relentless intake to stay awake without overdosing, but certainly not from watching the racing. The top cars remained comfortably distant from each other for most of the race distance, and there were few retirements to speak of either.

One of the retirements, though, was a significant one. For the second race in a row, Sebastian Vettel retired after mechanical issues to leave his title hopes floundering. It was a race to forget as soon as possible for Red Bull, as Mark Webber finished out of the points in 9th place, after being caught up behind a slow Kovalainen before his final stop. So, despite another poor outing for Button, his championship position over the Red Bulls is somehow strengthened.

Vettel had already seen his race ruined by a fuel rig problem at his first stop, which saw him drop out of the running for the points, but the engine failure could prove more significant in the long term, as it leaves the German with only two more engines from his allocation to complete the final six races with.

Away from the podium places, Heikki Kovalainen took fourth place, his best finish of the season so far, while Nico Rosberg took his seventh straight points finish with 5th place, still some way off the podium places he so covets, but another strong result nevertheless.

Fernando Alonso took 6th for Renault, to give the home crowd a minor triumph to cheer about. He was being caught by Button for a time late on, but the Brit backed off at the last to remain 7th. The final point went to the surprising form of Robert Kubica, netting BMW Sauber's first points since the Turkish GP in early June.

Webber ended a disconsolate 9th, while Adrian Sutil tried but failed to will his Force India into the points, rounding out the top ten instead, ahead of Nick Heidfeld's BMW Sauber and his team mate Fisichella.

The Toyota team endured a difficult afternoon, with Jarno Trulli managing 13th and Timo Glock 14th, after the German was involved in a first lap tangle with Sebastien Buemi's Toro Rosso, which punctured his rear tyre. Rookies Romain Grosjean and Jamie Alguersuari were next up in 15th and 16th.

Ferrari replacement Luca Badoer was a dismal 17th, which only tells half the story of his catalogue of failures during the race. Having benefited from the midfield tussling at the start to jump to 14th, he promptly spun back down to the back of the field, and then things really got going. He had another spin, he managed to lose a place to the recovering Grosjean by being passed at the exit of the pit lane, and he compounded that error by running over the white line at the exit of the pits, picking up a drive-through penalty in the process.

In defence of the Italian, he did say his aim was to finish the race, and he did exactly that. But still, he needs to improve his performance by around 40,000% at Spa in a week's time to convince Ferrari not to replace him with someone, anyone, else.

Joining Vettel in retirement was Buemi, who had a nasty brake failure and spun out, while Kazuki Nakajima suffered a puncture in his Williams, and finished behind even Badoer.

But Barrichello made the headlines, despite Badoer's efforts, and he now finds himself just 18 points behind his team mate in the drivers championship. While Red Bull will be expected to fight back strongly at Spa and Monza, circuits that will be much more "their" sort of track, the championship has returned to a four-way scrap after today's fun in Valencia.

And by "fun", we mean "utterly appalling race".

	Race Result after 57 laps
Pos	Driver	Car	Time/Reason	Pts
1	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn - Mercedes	1:35:51.289	10
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren - Mercedes	+2.358	8
3	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	+15.994	6
4	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren - Mercedes	+20.032	5
5	Nico Rosberg	Williams - Toyota	+20.870	4
6	Fernando Alonso	Renault	+27.744	3
7	Jenson Button	Brawn - Mercedes	+34.913	2
8	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	+36.667	1
9	Mark Webber	Red Bull - Renault	+44.910
10	Adrian Sutil	Force India - Mercedes	+47.935
11	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	+48.822
12	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India - Mercedes	+1:03.614
13	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	+1:04.527
14	Timo Glock	Toyota	+1:26.519
15	Romain Grosjean	Renault	+1:31.774
16	Jamie Alguersuari	Toro Rosso - Ferrari	+1 Lap
17	Luca Badoer	Ferrari	+1 Lap
18	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams - Toyota	+3 Laps
R	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso - Ferrari	Brake fail
R	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull - Renault	Another engine fail

Drivers Championship Standings -
1 Button 72pts, 2 Barrichello 54pts, 3 Webber 51.5pts, 4 Vettel 47pts, 5 Rosberg 29.5pts, 6 Hamilton 27pts, 7 Raikkonen 24pts, 8 Trulli 22.5pts, 9 Massa 22pts, 10 Glock, Alonso 16pts, 12 Kovalainen 14pts, 13 Heidfeld 6pts, 14 Buemi, Kubica 3pts, 16 Bourdais 2pts.

Constructors Championship Standings -
1 Brawn-Mercedes 126pts, 2 Red Bull-Renault 98.5pts, 3 Ferrari 46pts, 4 McLaren-Mercedes 41pts, 5 Toyota 38.5pts, 6 Williams-Toyota 29.5pts, 7 Renault 16pts, 8 BMW Sauber 9pts, 9 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 5pts.

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