Vettel and Valencia

So, another race and yet another display of dominance by Sebastien Vettel.

This weekend’s race raises 2 questions; firstly can anyone stop Vettel, and secondly, is Valencia worth its space on the calendar, given the crowded nature of the F1 season already.

I will start by discussing the second question first.

Given the current F1 season, there were great hopes going into Valencia that this could also provide a race that would live up to the excitement of Canada. Even at Monaco, a circuit notorious for being predictable and a lack of overtaking provided an exciting race – (sadly the final act was denied by a red flag and the chance for all competitors to put on new tyres).

However, in Valencia, there were no variable tyre strategies, so safety cars and very little overtaking. The circuit is a street circuit, but without the closeness of barriers of Monaco to punish mistakes. The fact that all 24 cars finished the race is indicative of the margin for error on the circuit.

The introduction of Valencia into the calendar was always strange – given the number of countries that wanted a race – but the popularity of Alonso swayed them into the decision. Now I feel that unless something is done to change the nature of the race, the future of Valencia may be very short.

Moving on to the dominance of Red Bull and in particular of Sebastien Vettel. The dominance in the race is helped greatly by their dominance in qualifying. The FIA changed a few rules thinking it would help; they will change a few more for Silverstone in a couple of weeks. However, to my mind the rule that needs to change most is that of the DRS.

The fact that you allowed to use it wherever you want in qualifying but only in a limited section in the race means that qualifying and race pace are always going to be different. In my opinion, the Red Bulls benefit most from this as their car seems to have better downforce and they can make more use of the DRS over a whole lap than many of the other teams.

My suggestion would therefore be to outlaw the DRS during qualifying – it is an overtaking aid and overtaking is not required during qualifying anyway.

The other point to make about Red Bull, is there was always potential for this dominance to happen. Last year they dominated qualifying but made mistakes and had reliability issues. This year they have sorted out their reliability and Vettel is driving with the confidence of a world champion.

The other drivers have already conceded the title and assuming reliability remains this good- its easy to see why.