F1 News
Date: 27/06/2011
Reigning F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel pushed his 2011 points lead to over three races with his sixth victory of the season during Sunday's European Grand Prix at Valencia.
The Red Bull star's latest triumph couldn’t have been in greater contrast to his last-lap loss to Jenson Button at the previous Canadian round.
That rain-interrupted race was hailed as one of the most entertaining in F1 history, but not even the new-for-2011 DRS zones could spark the Valencia race into life.
Vettel led for all but one of the 57 laps, finishing 10.8sec clear of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, with Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber in third. All 24 drivers finished and there was little overtaking on the long and twisty street circuit.
But with the Montreal thriller ending in bitter disappointment for Vettel, the young German was happy to claim a 'boring' win in Spain.
"From the outside I don't know how much there was happening in the Grand Prix. At least for myself it looked like a boring race, but I tell you I enjoy it so much when it is between you and the car every single lap," said Vettel.
"Of course, I had some pressure from behind at various times as the strategy was a little bit different from Mark and Fernando. Even though I had a gap before the stop I came out of the garage and still they were quite close again.
"I was pushing hard but judging the tyres, trying to imagine what the end of the stint could be like, trying to foresee the strategy. Last year I had a very smooth weekend and again this year from the beginning to the end. Fantastic.
"Even though we come here every year and we say this might be tricky as this track is maybe not made for us 100 per cent, with no real fast corners, but we manage to put everything together and faultless this weekend. I am very happy with the result."
Vettel has finished first or second in all eight races this season, allowing him to hold a 77 point advantage over McLaren driver Button, who could only manage sixth at Valencia.
Despite his mammoth advantage, Vettel insisted he's not taking the title for granted.
Sebastian, are you calculating at which race you could clinch the championship?
"No. I wasn't good in maths," he smiled, when asked if he was already calculating where he could be crowned 2011 champion.
"It's good to know that obviously we are in the lead, by how many points I don't really care. People tell me often enough so I don't need to check. I think we will find out early enough when it matters, whether we are in a good position or not."
Second place for home-hero Alonso at least gave the Valencia fans reason to cheer, but the outlook for Alonso's title hopes is extremely bleak.
The former double world champion is now 99 points from Vettel and, although there are eleven races and 275 points still up for grabs, Alonso confessed it is out of his hands.
"Obviously the championship is not in our calculations at the moment. We need to take it race by race, try to win races and wait for some mistakes from Red Bull," he said.
"At the moment, I don't think we can think of the championship in a proper way. We just need to take it race by race and see what happens in the last part of the season. The distance now with 99 points, is a lot so it's not in our hands.
"At the moment, we're one second or eight tenths [of a lap] behind, so if anyone thinks we can win a championship being eight tenths behind it's because maybe they don't understand Formula One."
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