European Grand Prix 2012

 European Grand Prix 2012

Racing data
8th of 20 races of the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship
Surname:	2012 Formula 1 Grand Prix of Europe
Date:	June 24, 2012
Place:	Valencia
Course:	Valencia Street Circuit
Length:	308.883 km in 57 laps of 5.419 km
Pole position
Driver:	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault
Time:	1: 38.086 min
Fastest lap
Driver:	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
Time:	1: 42.163 min (lap 54)
Podium
First:	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
Second:	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus Renault
Third:	Michael sSchumacher	Mercedes

The 2012 European Grand Prix took place on June 24th at the Valencia Street Circuit in Valencia ( Spain ) and was the eighth race of the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship .

Reports

background

After the Canadian Grand Prix , Lewis Hamilton led the drivers' standings with 2 points ahead of Fernando Alonso and 3 points on Sebastian Vettel . In the construction standings, Red Bull-Renault led with 31 points ahead of McLaren-Mercedes and with 56 points ahead of Lotus-Renault .

At this Grand Prix, McLaren competed for the 300th time with engines from Mercedes AMG HPP .

At the European Grand Prix, Pirelli provided the drivers with the tire compounds P Zero Medium (white) and P Zero Soft (yellow), as well as Cinturato Intermediates (green) and Cinturato Full Wets (blue) for wet conditions .

With Michael Schumacher (six times), Alonso, Vettel (twice each) and Felipe Massa (once), four former winners competed for this Grand Prix.

The race stewards were Garry Connelly (AUS), Paolo Longoni (ITA), Mika Salo (FIN) and Manuel Vidal (ESP).

training

In the first free practice, Pastor Maldonado was the fastest driver ahead of the Red Bull drivers Vettel and Mark Webber . This training took Jules Bianchi the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg and Valtteri Bottas the Williams of Bruno Senna . In the second free practice session, Vettel set the fastest time ahead of Hülkenberg and Kamui Kobayashi . In the third free practice session, Jenson Button took the lead in front of Lotus drivers Romain Grosjean and Kimi Räikkönen . After the training, Vettel drove the absolute best time of this training session in the first two sectors.

Qualifying

Timo Glock did not take part in qualifying because he had to go to the hospital with stomach problems. Maldonado was the fastest pilot. The Marussia and HRT pilots as well as Vitali Petrow , Webber and Jean-Éric Vergne were eliminated. After qualifying, it became known that Webber's Drag Reduction System (DRS) had not worked. Grosjean posted the fastest time in the second part of the time practice. The first seven pilots were within 0.081 s. The Ferrari drivers as well as Daniel Ricciardo , Heikki Kovalainen , Sergio Pérez , Senna and Schumacher did not make it into the last segment. In this Vettel achieved the fastest lap and got the pole position with 0.324 s ahead of Hamilton. Maldonado was third.

After qualifying, Glock received permission to start from the race stewards because he had achieved a time within the 107 percent rule in practice. However, he decided not to start because his health did not allow it. Glock suffered from an intestinal infection. Another driver was not allowed to move up because a driver change should have been carried out before qualifying.

run

At the start of the race, Vettel kept the lead over Hamilton. Grosjean attacked Maldonado and took third place. While Kobayashi and the Ferrari drivers Alonso and Massa had a good start, Nico Rosberg dropped from sixth to tenth place.

Vettel pulled away from the rest of the field in the following laps, while Grosjean put pressure on Hamilton. In midfield, Paul di Resta and Massa battled it out for ninth place. However, Massa couldn't get past his opponent. On the tenth lap, Grosjean finally managed to drive past Hamilton with the help of the DRS. He broke away from his opponent immediately, but remained well behind Vettel. Three laps later, Alonso overtook Hülkenberg and took seventh position, and Raikkonen passed Maldonado into fifth. A lap later, Maldonado lost another position to Alonso. In addition, there was a collision between Narain Karthikeyan and Charles Pic in the initial phase .

During the first pit stops, Raikkonen passed Kobayashi, who had been fourth up until then, and Alonso also overtook the two racing drivers. Since several pilots had not stopped yet, with the exception of Vettel, who kept the lead, all the other pilots were behind drivers who were not yet in the pits. First Hamilton overtook Senna, then Alonso passed Webber, Senna and Schumacher within two laps. Grosjean again took over the second position from di Resta.

A train of several pilots had now formed behind Senna. After Raikkonen drove past him, Kobayashi also tried to overtake him. However, Senna closed the door and they both collided. Kobayashi's front wing was damaged and Senna drove on with a flat tire. Both had to pits for a repair stop. The race management saw the fault with Senna and gave him a drive-through penalty. Di Resta lost more and more time a little later and, after being overtaken by Alonso, Räikkönen and Maldonado, pitted to change tires.

While Vettel was leading Grosjean by over 20 seconds, there was a duel between Kovalainen and Vergne in midfield. When the two pilots were next to each other, Vergne suddenly pulled over and both pilots collided. Both drivers suffered a tire damage and distributed parts on the track. While Kovalainen drove on after a repair, the race was over for Vergne in the pits. After the race, Vergne received a starting place penalty of ten positions for the next race for causing the collision.

Because of the parts on the track, the race management decided to send the safety car out onto the track. This decision was criticized after the race by Vettel and his racing team Red Bull and it was indirectly suggested that the safety car came out mainly to bring the field back together. Various pilots, including the leaders, pitted for their last planned tire change. McLaren failed again with Hamilton's pit stop, which caused him to drop to sixth place behind Alonso and Raikkonen. Ricciardo, who had not changed his tires, was fourth behind Vettel, Grosjean and Alonso.

After all the lapped pilots had rounded themselves back to have the field in the right order, the restart was carried out. Both Lotus drivers lost one position each. Alonso overtook Grosjean, who had not come out of the last corner optimally, and took over second place, while Raikkonen fell behind Hamilton to sixth place. Several incidents occurred in the same lap. First, Kobayashi collided with Massa. While Massa drove on after a repair stop, Kobayashi gave up at the pits because the car was too badly damaged. After the race, Kobayashi received a starting place penalty of five positions for the next race for causing the collision. Almost at the same time as this collision, Vettel slowed down at the front and finally parked his car. A defective alternator was responsible for Vettel's failure. The auxiliary unit overheated, which is why the engine shut down. The problems should only have started when Vettel drove around the track at a slower pace behind the safety car. A little later there was an investigation into Hamilton on charges of ignoring yellow flags; the stewards, however, came to the decision that Hamilton had not committed a rule violation.

While Alonso was now leading the race and Karthikeyan had been given a drive-through penalty for driving too fast in the pit lane, Grosjean dropped out in second place. A defective alternator, which resulted in a lack of electricity, was also the reason for the failure. In the meantime, Petrow was in tenth place in midfield, which would have meant Caterham's first point placement . However, he was first overtaken by Schumacher and Webber, who were in the pits again after the safety car phase, and then collided with Ricciardo, which made it necessary to stop repairs.

In the final phase, Hamilton, whose tires were wearing off, and Raikkonen battled for second place. A little further back, Schumacher and Webber began a series of overtaking maneuvers. First, Schumacher and Webber overtook Button on the 49th lap and took eighth and ninth place. On the 55th lap, Raikkonen managed to overtake Hamilton and take second position. Alonso benefited from the duel between Hamilton and Raikkonen, as both lost several seconds as a result. Hamilton then had to defend against Maldonado. With two laps to go, Maldonado tried to drive past Hamilton, but the latter stayed on his line while Maldonado briefly left the track. When he drove back onto the track, the two vehicles touched. Hamilton's vehicle was so badly damaged that the race was over immediately. Maldonado damaged his front wing. Maldonado received a drive-through penalty after the race for causing this collision, which was converted into a 20-second time penalty. It dropped from tenth to twelfth place as a result.

Alonso finally crossed the finish line in first place ahead of Raikkonen and was the first driver to win a second race this season. Alonso parked his car on the run-out lap because there was a technical problem and first celebrated the victory in front of a grandstand.

Schumacher finished third and achieved a podium finish for the first time since the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix and for the first time for Mercedes . Webber finished fourth. After the race, there was an investigation against Schumacher because he had his rear wing open during a yellow phase. However, the race management found that Schumacher slowed down sufficiently and did not issue a penalty.

Fifth place went to Hulkenberg, who achieved his best Formula 1 position to date. The other points went to Rosberg, di Resta, Button, Pérez and Senna.

In the drivers' world championship, Alonso took over the lead from Hamilton, who dropped to third place. Webber took the second position. The positions of the designers remained unchanged.

Registration list

team	No.	driver	chassis	engine	tires
Red Bull Racing	01	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull RB8	Renault 2.4 V8	P
	02	Mark Webber
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes	03	Jenson Button	McLaren MP4-27	Mercedes-Benz 2.4 V8	P
	04th	Lewis Hamilton
Scuderia Ferrari	05	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari F2012	Ferrari 2.4 V8	P
	06th	Felipe Massa
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	07th	Michael sSchumacher	Mercedes F1 W03	Mercedes-Benz 2.4 V8	P
	08th	Nico Rosberg
Lotus F1 Team	09	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus E20	Renault 2.4 V8	P
	10	Romain Grosjean
Sahara Force India F1 Team	11	Paul di Resta	Force India VJM05	Mercedes-Benz 2.4 V8	P
	12	Jules Bianchi
		Nico Hulkenberg
Sauber F1 Team	14th	Kamui Kobayashi	Clean C31	Ferrari 2.4 V8	P
	15th	Sergio Perez
Scuderia Toro Rosso	16	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso STR7	Ferrari 2.4 V8	P
	17th	Jean-Éric Vergne
Williams F1 team	18th	Pastor Maldonado	Williams FW34	Renault 2.4 V8	P
	19th	Valtteri Bottas
		Bruno Senna
Caterham F1 team	20th	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham CT01	Renault 2.4 V8	P
	21st	Vitaly Petrov
HRT F1 team	22nd	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT F112	Cosworth 2.4 V8	P
	23	Narain Karthikeyan
Marussia F1 Team	24	Timo Glock	Marussia MR01	Cosworth 2.4 V8	P
	25th	Charles Pic

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Bianchi drove the Force India with the number 12 in the first free practice. Hülkenberg then took over the vehicle for the rest of the race weekend.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Bottas drove the Williams with the number 19 in the first free practice. Senna then took over the vehicle for the rest of the race weekend.

Classifications

Qualifying

Item	driver	constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3	begin
01	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1: 39.626	1: 38.530	1: 38.086	01
02	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1: 39.169	1: 38.616	1: 38.410	02
03	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1: 38.825	1: 38.570	1: 38.475	03
04th	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	1: 39.530	1: 38.489	1: 38.505	04th
05	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus Renault	1: 39.464	1: 38.531	1: 38.513	05
06th	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1: 39.061	1: 38.504	1: 38.623	06th
07th	Kamui Kobayashi	Clean Ferrari	1: 39.651	1: 38.703	1: 38.741	07th
08th	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1: 39.009	1: 38.689	1: 38.752	08th
09	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1: 39.622	1: 38.563	1: 38.801	09
10	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1: 38.858	1: 38.519	1: 38.992	10
11	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1: 39.409	1: 38.707	-	11
12	Michael sSchumacher	Mercedes	1: 39.447	1: 38.770	-	12
13	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1: 39.388	1: 38.780	-	13
14th	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	1: 39.449	1: 39.207	-	14th
15th	Sergio Perez	Clean Ferrari	1: 39.353	1: 39.358	-	15th
16	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	1: 40.087	1: 40.295	-	16
17th	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1: 39.924	1: 40.358	-	17th
18th	Jean-Éric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1: 40.203	-	-	18th
19th	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1: 40.395	-	-	19th
20th	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	1: 40.457	-	-	20th
21st	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	1: 42.171	-	-	21st
22nd	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1: 42.527	-	-	22nd
23	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	1: 42.675	-	-	23
107 percent time : 1: 45.742 min (based on Q1 best time of 1: 38.825 min)
DNQ	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	no time	-	-	24

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t} racing cars with KERS

run

Item	driver	constructor	Round	Stops	time	begin	Fastest lap
01	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	57	2	1: 44: 16,649	11	1: 43.666 (40th)
02	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus Renault	57	2	+ 6.421	05	1: 43.686 (43.)
03	Michael sSchumacher	Mercedes	57	2	+ 12.639	12	1: 43.099 (43.)
04th	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	57	2	+ 13.628	19th	1: 42.717 (40.)
05	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	57	2	+ 19.993	08th	1: 44.226 (40.)
06th	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	57	2	+ 21.176	06th	1: 42,163 (54.)
07th	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	57	1	+ 22.866	10	1: 44.101 (45.)
08th	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	57	2	+ 24.653	09	1: 44.806 (48th)
09	Sergio Perez	Clean Ferrari	57	2	+ 27.777	15th	1: 43,526 (43.)
10	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	57	2	+ 35.961	14th	1: 44,111 (44.)
11	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	57	2	+ 37.041	17th	1: 43.674 (44th)
12	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	57	2	+ 54.630	03	1: 44.064 (43.)
13	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	57	4th	+1: 15.871	20th	1: 44.253 (54.)
14th	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	57	2	+1: 34.654	16	1: 45.294 (40.)
15th	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	57	2	+1: 36.551	23	1: 46.701 (43.)
16	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	56	4th	+ 1 lap	13	1: 44.431 (36th)
17th	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	56	2	+ 1 lap	21st	1: 46.799 (36th)
18th	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	56	3	+ 1 lap	22nd	1: 46.388 (42nd)
19th	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	55	2	DNF	02	1: 44.007 (43.)
-	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	40	2	DNF	04th	1: 43.764 (38th)
-	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	33	2	DNF	01	1: 44.555 (18.)
-	Kamui Kobayashi	Clean Ferrari	33	2	DNF	07th	1: 45.082 (22.)
-	Jean-Éric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	26th	1	DNF	18th	1: 45.491 (22.)
-	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	-	-	DNS	24	-

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t} racing cars with KERS

World Cup stands after the race

The first ten of the race got 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 point (s) respectively.

Driver ranking

Item driver constructor Points 01  Fernando Alonso Ferrari 111 02  Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 91 03  Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 88 04th  Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 85 05  Nico Rosberg Mercedes 75 06th  Kimi Raikkonen Lotus Renault 73 07th  Romain Grosjean Lotus Renault 53 08th  Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 49 09  Sergio Perez Clean Ferrari 39 10  Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 29 11  Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 27 12  Kamui Kobayashi Clean Ferrari 21st

Item driver constructor Points 13  Michael sSchumacher Mercedes 17th 14th  Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 17th 15th  Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 16 16  Felipe Massa Ferrari 11 17th  Jean-Éric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 4th 18th  Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 2 19th  Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 0 20th  Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 0 21st  Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 0 22nd  Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 0 23  Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 0 24  Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 0

Constructors' championship

Item constructor Points 01  Red Bull-Renault 176 02  McLaren-Mercedes 137 03  Lotus Renault 126 04th  Ferrari 122 05  Mercedes 92 06th  Clean Ferrari 60

Item constructor Points 07th  Williams-Renault 45 08th  Force India-Mercedes 44 09  Toro Rosso-Ferrari 6th 10  Caterham-Renault 0 11  Marussia-Cosworth 0 12  HRT-Cosworth 0

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stefan Ziegler: "McLaren and Mercedes celebrate their 300th racing anniversary". Motorsport-Total.com, June 22, 2012, accessed June 22, 2012 . 
2. ↑ Sebastian Fränzschky: "The tire compounds for the next four races". Motorsport-Total.com, May 21, 2012, accessed May 25, 2012 . 
3. ^ "GP Europe in Valencia / 1st free practice". Motorsport-Total.com, June 22, 2012, accessed June 22, 2012 . 
4. ^ "GP Europe in Valencia / 2nd free practice". Motorsport-Total.com, June 22, 2012, accessed June 22, 2012 . 
5. ^ "GP Europe in Valencia / 3rd free practice". Motorsport-Total.com, June 23, 2012, accessed June 23, 2012 . 
6. ↑ Christian Nimmervoll: "Best time for Button, but Vettel fastest". Motorsport-Total.com, June 23, 2012, accessed June 23, 2012 . 
7. ↑ Christian Nimmervoll: "Glock in the hospital: qualifying canceled". Motorsport-Total.com, June 23, 2012, accessed June 23, 2012 . 
8. ↑ Dominik Sharaf: "Webber: Chances without DRS". Motorsport-Total.com, June 23, 2012, accessed June 23, 2012 . 
9. ↑ Dominik Sharaf: "Glock can start if the doctor allows it". Motorsport-Total.com, June 23, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
10. ↑ Christian Nimmervoll: "Intestinal infection: Glock must skip the race". Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Christian Nimmervoll: "Spain celebrates with Alonso: Victory in Valencia!" Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed on June 24, 2012 . 
12. ↑ ^{a b} Kerstin Hasenbichler: "Formula 1 - Kobayashi experienced two collisions". A race of missed opportunities. Motorsport-Magazin.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
13. ^ ^{A b} Christian Nimmervoll: "Maldonado, Vergne, Kobayashi: FIA distributes penalties". Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
14. ↑ Stefan Ziegler: "Vettel fails and criticizes the race management". Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
15. ↑ ^{a b} Dominik Sharaf: “Show element safety car? Marko strengthens Vettel ”. Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
16. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Rencken, Dominik Sharaf: “Renault engine breakdowns: Different causes”. Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
17. ↑ Kerstin Hasenbichler: "Formula 1 - Alonso wins the European GP". Technology stops Vettel & Grosjean. Motorsport-Magazin.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
18. ↑ Robert Seiwert: "Formula 1 - Petrov after a boxing orgy on P13". Crash meeting with Toro Rosso. Motorsport-Magazin.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
19. ↑ Christian Nimmervoll, Dieter Rencken: "Maldonado quarrels with 20-second penalty." Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
20. ↑ Fabian Hust: "Valencia: Schumacher returns to the podium". Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 . 
21. ↑ Dominik Sharaf: "No penalty for Schumacher: third place for sure". Motorsport-Total.com, June 24, 2012, accessed June 24, 2012 .