The McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen predictably sacrificed fuel load in order to secure the front row of the grid in Valencia, and will start the race as two of the lightest cars in the whole field, according to the published fuel weights.
Polesitter Lewis Hamilton is the lightest car on the grid, with Heikki Kovalainen third-lightest, and only the second row man of Sebastian Vettel splitting the pair of them as the second-lightest car. While Hamilton is only a kilo lighter than Vettel, his main concern will be third placed Rubens Barrichello, who will start with 9.5kg more fuel in the car, which should give the Brawn man a good 3 laps on him during the first stops. Assuming he can hold off the KERS-shod Kimi Raikkonen off the line, champioship leader Jenson Button will have around three laps on title rival Vettel from 5th place on the grid, and generally, Brawn GP seem to have won back their edge this weekend, even if they are slightly poorly-placed on the grid.
Also running light in the final part of qualifying were 8th placed man Fernando Alonso, who was frustrated by his relatively low qualifying position, and Robert Kubica, who managed to get a BMW in the top ten, but couldn't do anything but set the slowest time in Q3, despite a fuel advantage over many.
Mark Webber, the Red Bull title contender, will start heavier than most from 9th place, and may be able to make up places in the first round of stops, while Nico Rosberg, who qualified in 7th, was the heaviest of the Q3 runners with a total weight of 665.0kg for the race tomorrow.
Further back, Adrian Sutil will aim to finally score a Force India championship point with a fairly light starting fuel load, Luca Badoer will attempt his remarkable comeback drive from 20th to 17th with 690.5kg of fuel in the back, while Jarno Trulli is not expected to make another pit stop for the rest of the season.
| European GP Fuel | |||
| Driver | Weight | Grid Pos | |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | 653.0kg | 1 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | 654.0kg | 4 |
| 3 | Heikki Kovalainen | 655.0kg | 2 |
| 4 | Fernando Alonso | 656.5kg | 8 |
| 5 | Robert Kubica | 657.5kg | 10 |
| 6 | Kimi Raikkonen | 661.5kg | 6 |
| 7 | Jenson Button | 661.5kg | 5 |
| 8 | Rubens Barrichello | 662.5kg | 3 |
| 9 | Mark Webber | 664.5kg | 9 |
| 10 | Nico Rosberg | 665.0kg | 7 |
| 11 | Adrian Sutil | 672.5kg | 12 |
| 12 | Nick Heidfeld | 677.0kg | 11 |
| 13 | Romain Grosjean | 677.7kg | 14 |
| 14 | Jamie Alguersuari | 678.5kg | 19 |
| 15 | Sebastien Buemi | 688.5kg | 15 |
| 16 | Luca Badoer | 690.5kg | 20 |
| 17 | Giancarlo Fisichella | 692.5kg | 16 |
| 18 | Timo Glock | 694.7kg | 13 |
| 19 | Kazuki Nakajima | 702.0kg | 17 |
| 20 | Jarno Trulli | 707.3kg | 18 |
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