2011 European Grand Prix

Championship standings

Vettel leads on 161 points, 60 clear of Button on 101. Webber is third on 94, Hamilton fourth on 85 and Alonso fifth on 69. Both Alonso and Hamilton retired in Montreal.

Previous race

Button won the Canadian Grand Prix in extraordinary fashion, the race running for over four hours including a two-hour red flag stoppage for a torrential downpour. Button collided with Hamilton on the pit straight and received a drive-through penalty for speeding behind the safety car, dropping to last place by lap 25. When racing resumed on a drying track, Button worked his way through the field from 21st. On the final lap, Vettel ran wide off the dry line and Button swept past to win. Schumacher finished fourth — his best result since returning to Formula One — while de la Rosa stood in for Pérez at Sauber.

Regulation

The FIA introduced an additional restriction in advance of Valencia: teams are prohibited from running “extreme” engine maps in qualifying that they would not use in a race, forcing them to use the same map across both sessions. The FIA estimates this will cost some teams up to half a second per lap in qualifying. The race also marks the debut of Pirelli’s medium compound as a race tyre for the first time in 2011, selected as the white-banded harder prime.

Two DRS activation zones are in use at Valencia: the first covers the long back straight on the approach to Turn 12, the second the stretch from turns 14 to 17. This follows the successful introduction of two DRS zones at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Tyre choices

Pirelli brings the white-banded medium compound as the prime and the yellow-banded soft as the option. The medium compound makes its race debut this weekend.

Practice

Webber was fastest in FP1 by eight-tenths of a second over Petrov; Alonso, Hamilton and Heidfeld completed the top five. Vettel was 16th, two and a half seconds off the pace — using the session for fuel-saving and set-up work rather than time attacks. Chandhok, substituting for Trulli at Lotus, was the only driver not to set a time.

Alonso was fastest in FP2, again just ahead of Hamilton. Vettel moved up to third; Schumacher was fourth. Alguersuari was the only driver to set no time in the session.

Vettel topped FP3 ahead of Alonso, Massa, Webber, Button, Rosberg, Hamilton, Schumacher, Petrov and Heidfeld.