Valencia 2012 - What We Learnt

By David Galton-Fenzi

We Told You So....

Halfway through the race it appeared as though everything was going exactly as DownUnderSteer had foretold, and I’d almost finished writing this article already. I had everything covered, from Vettels dominant victory, to McLaren finally getting on top of their pit stop errors with a couple very slick stops for Lewis and Jenson. Of course, Valencia was still proving difficult to pass at with minimal action on track which left Webber, after his DRS failed in qualifying, firmly mired at the rear of the field, a victim of Red Bulls straight-line speed deficit. But then the safety car came out and as it turns out, what the fuck do we know?!

Alonso - causing major rewrites since the birth of time

Alonso is THE Man!

After qualifying in 11th place, things were not looking good for Alonso at his second home race, but his lowly grid slot was very misleading. The field in Q2 was so closely bunched his best time was only 0.218 seconds slower than Grosjean's ultimate pace!! The gap between Alonso and a spot in the Q3 shootout; 4 thousandths! Thats almost a hundred times less than the blink of an eye!

Torque Points - Valencia 2012

By David Galton-Fenzi and Jem Ruggera

The Track is Rubbish

The Tilke designed Valencia circuit first burst onto the F1 calendar in 2008 amid much fanfare and expectation. Here was a street circuit that looked like an established track. The layout was nothing like existing street tracks, with a very long lap length and straights that would encourage overtaking. Proper straights!! On a street circuit... imagine that.

Fast forward four years and it’s become one of the most unloved circuits there is. Dire processional races abound with last year being a particular new low. Of the 24 cars that started the race, 24 finished which means that nothing happened. Nothing! (with apologies to Mr Vettel) DRS was meant to fix the inherent problems with the layout, but I fear this track is beyond saving, and why should we have to resort to fine tuning the artificial element of F1 just to have a decent watchable event?

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