Valencia Race Raises A Lot Of Questions
Well it is hard to say if the European Grand Prix last week was actually a kickoff for the Valencia track or was is really a bad evening that slump the circuit even further. Last Sunday, the ninth race of the Formula One 2010 season took place in Valencia, Spain. The race was filled with drama, adventure, brawls and all that one would want to see in a Formula One event. It is not only the fast moving cars that attract the fans but there needs to be the complete serving of all the spice and sugar to make an event complete and remarkable. Yet still, a little over dosage of sugar or spice could destroy the entire taste.
The race at Valencia, last weekend was one of such kind. The Valencia track had never been one of the favourites among the Formula One fans. It is a newly built track that hosted its third race since its inauguration in the year 2008. The track is a mix of purpose built road track as well as patches of street track. Technically a lot of people compare it to the Monaco Circuit which is one of the most popular in the Formula One world while this one is the most infamous. Despite the beautiful port of the city which is laced to a long part of the track it had not been able to get much appreciation in the past few years.
This year’s race had been full of action and drama. All the newspapers, television channels as well as internet had been flooded by the post race reports. The place has never been able to magnetise such media coverage in the past years as the event of this year did. However it is yet to decide if much of it actually added to the popularity of the track or further doomed it.
One of the leading drivers of the season Mark Webber, of Red Bull encountered a very frightful accident in the race as his car was hit by the Lotus driver, Heikki Kovalainen. The Red Bull car presented a complete acrobatic performance as it had a one eighty degree spin in the air before it landed crashing with the tyre wall. Both the drivers had to resign following the crash. This brought Webber one place down in the World Championship from his initial third place to forth now after the ninth race of the season. Moreover, Red Bull is now busy building a new chassis for the driver for the upcoming British Grand prix, owing to the complete damage to the car. However, luckily both the drivers came unharmed after the terrifying crash.
In addition to this, nine of the drivers including, Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Buemi, De la Rosa, Petrov, Liuzzi and Hulkenberg received a post race penalty of five seconds each due to speeding while there was safety car on the track. Moreover, Timo Glock of Virgin received a twenty second penalty for ignoring the blue flags.
However, the penalty that attracted the attention as well as rage of everybody was the one handed to Lewis Hamilton. No, the reason of anger is not a wrong penalty rather it is a late penalty that enraged everybody. Hamilton overtook the safety car that came to clear the Webber’s car’s debris which defies the FIA rules. The penalty handed was so late that he got time to make his position safe in the race thus ending second, on the other hand his previous team mate, Fernando Alonso who abided by the safety car rule ended at eighth place. Before the safety car came in they were both moving together, while the two times World Champion, Alonso was in a better pace than Hamilton.
Moreover, the last but not the least event of the afternoon was the glass bottle that was thrown by some of the race fans on the track during the race. Later, Alonso pronounced it a reaction of the late decision taken by FIA regarding Hamilton’s breach of the rule.
Thus the European Grand Prix unfolded amidst all the drama and controversies. Some of the critics claim it to be a race that has defamed FIA and its rules while the others have claimed it a bad patch on Spanish people’s profile suggesting banning them from the FIA calendar for the next season for the glass bottle incident and similarly there are many other assessments and suggestions of the F1 fans following the race. Every Formula One fan sees the race in its own way so can you...
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