Valencia will be known as a street track that is hard for overtaking and not the best spectacle for F1 Fans.

This all changed as the European Grand Prix was sparked to life early on when Red Bull’s Mark Webber smashed into the back of Virgin Team Racing’s Heikki Kovalainen. The crash caused a flip from one of the Championship favourites as the Australian luckily got out unscathed.

This accident caused the safety car to deploy, and this was to many drivers’ advantage, as the back runners were able to pit and get in a promising position for the continuation of the race, BMW Sauber were one of these teams, and it was from this stage on that Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi repaid the team for their patience and belief they have shown in him.

The young, attacking driver has been unfortunate this season at times, but shown his in-experience at other times as he has failed to finish over half of the races so far this season. Kumui got lucky after the early accident as he was second behind Jenson Button as the safety car was called upon, and held a strong race to eventually pick up six Championship points.

Kobayashi was over the moon and had this to say in his post race interview;

“Before the race we had decided to use separate tyre strategies for Pedro and me. I started on the harder ones and didn’t pit when everybody else did. It was great racing there at the front, but it was not easy either because I had Jenson Button close behind me all the time, and also I had to look after my tyres. I was careful not to overdrive them. After my pit stop I had only four laps to make use of my fresh tyres. At this moment I had better grip than anybody else, and I felt I had to make the most out of it. Of course it was a risk to overtake Alonso and Buemi. If it hadn’t worked out and I had crashed I would have been in trouble.”

Team mate Pedro De La Rosa also had a good race after starting just in front of Kobayashi he finished in 10^th position, but after the race the FIA handed out five-second penalties to nine Formula 1 drivers for “failing to stay above the minimum time set by the FIA when the Safety Car was deployed”. Pedro de la Rosa was among those nine drivers, which meant he dropped back from tenth to 12^th in the official results and lost his one championship point.

Team Principal Peter Sauber had this to say about the team;

“What a fantastic race, particularly considering where we were on the grid. The team and the drivers did everything right today. Pedro delivered a very solid performance and scored one point (Later deducted), and Kamui was absolutely amazing. The lap times which he put in while he was in third were stunning. They prove how much potential there is in this car. Congratulations to the whole team and the drivers!”

Germany had a day to remember as not only did they put one over old rivals England in the football, but Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel claimed race victory after holding his nerves and leading from start to finish once the race formation was set, but McLaren yet again showed their class as they to finish 2d and 3^rd, with other title rivals Alonso and Massa in the Ferrari not having great weekends finishing 8^th and 11^th respectively.

De La Rosa was disappointed to have missed out on his point but was full of praise for the Sauber team after the race saying;

“It was a great race from the team. The strategy paid off and the car was really good under race conditions. For most of the race I was stuck in traffic. The last 12 laps were very difficult for me because I had a big flat spot on my front right tyre, and the vibrations in the car were quite bad. I didn’t say this over the radio to the team, as I wanted to save them from bad news during the race because we have had enough of that. I am very, very happy for the entire team that we scored these points today. It is a great team and they deserve to be happy”

It will be a relief to all the Sauber team who have worked so hard on getting the right set up for each driver and these points in Valencia are proof that the Sauber’s can contend with the likes of Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams.

Silverstone next up and the team will be hoping for a better qualifying session to try and get more points on the board in the constructors championship.

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