page_title: 2010 European Grand Prix
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 European Grand Prix / Race
caption_attribution_description: Formula One 2010 Rd.16 Japanese GP: Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) at autograph session on Thursday.
context_page_description: The 2010 European Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 27 June at the Valencia Street Circuit in Valencia, Spain. It was the ninth round of the 2010 Formula One season. The 57-lap race was won by Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel who started from pole position. Lewis Hamilton finished second for the McLaren team and his teammate Jenson Button was third. It was Vettel's second win of the season, and the seventh of his Formula One career.
  Vettel maintained his leading heading into the first corner and resisted Hamilton's attempts to pass him. The safety car was deployed following a large accident involving Vettel's teammate Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen on the ninth lap. Hamilton passed the safety car and was later issued with a drive-through penalty for which he served on lap 27. Vettel remained the leader at the restart despite running deep in the track's final corner. Hamilton drew closer to Vettel but he was unable to get close and Vettel maintained the lead for the remainder of the race to win.
  As a consequence of the race, Hamilton extended his lead in the World Drivers' Championship to seven points ahead of Button.
context_section_description: The race commenced at 14:00 Central European Summer Time (UTC+2). At the start, weather conditions were sunny and hot with an air temperature of 27 to 28 °C (81 to 82 °F) and a track temperature between 43 to 47 °C (109 to 117 °F). The top ten qualifiers started on the super soft compound tyre. When the five red lights extinguished to signal the start of the race, Vettel maintained his pole position advantage heading into the second corner. Hamilton accelerated faster than Webber off the line, overtaking him heading into the second turn. Vettel fended off an challenge from Hamilton who made contact with Vettel's right wheel in the second corner and Hamilton reported a vibration in his left-front tyre. The contact damaged Hamilton's front wing. Webber made contact with Button and dropped to ninth by the end of the first lap. Petrov lost the most places, falling from tenth to 16th by the conclusion of the lap. This was due to a large amount of wheelspin delaying Petrov when he drove away from his starting position. At the end of the first lap, Vettel led from Hamilton, Alonso, Massa, Kubica, Button, Barrichello, Hülkenberg, Webber, Buemi, Schumacher, Sutil, Liuzzi, Rosberg, Petrov, Alguersuari, de la Rosa, Kobayashi, Kovalainen, di Grassi, Glock, Chandhok, Senna and Trulli.
  Vettel began to pull away from the rest of the field. Trulli made a pit stop for a replacement nose cone at the start of the second lap after another car made contact with the rear end of his car and his front wing was removed. Webber battled Hülkenberg for eighth position but was unable to overtake the latter. Trulli made a second pit stop on the fifth lap to allow his mechanics to rectify a problem with his car's gearbox and turned off his engine to allow for repairs to occur. Vettel set a fastest lap of the race on lap five, a 1:43.055, and was three seconds ahead of Hamilton, who in turn was being caught by Alonso. It was reported by Red Bull on the following lap that eighth-placed Webber had no mechanical issues. Webber made an early pit stop on lap seven for the medium compound tyres but his crew had a minor problem fitting his left-front wheel which meant he was stationary for 7.9 seconds, and rejoined in 18th position. Rosberg made a similar stop on the next lap but he overshot his pit stall and rejoined in 19th place.
  On lap nine, Webber attempted to pass Kovalainen for 17th, by running in his slipstream at 190 miles per hour (310 km/h) on the main straight but the latter appeared to brake earlier than Webber expected, and the Red Bull made contact with Kovalainen's right-rear wheel, sending him airborne. He struck an advertising hoarding and somersaulted. Webber's car landed on its nose, careered into the turn 12 run-off area at high speed and collided with a tyre barrier. Webber was unhurt. The large force of the accident broke his brake pedal. The incident prompted the deployment of the safety car, to allow marshals to clear debris from the area and extricate Webber's car from the run-off area. Kubica, Button, Barrichello, Hülkenberg, Buemi, Sutil, Liuzzi, de la Rosa and Chandhok elected to make pit stops during the safety car period. The safety car was sent onto the circuit as the leaders completed the ninth lap but did not emerge in front of Vettel. Hamilton had the opportunity to overtake the safety car but initially hesitated prior to committing to going by and the delay meant that the safety car had just crossed the official pit-exit line.
  The two Ferrari cars and the Renault of Kubica were the first to queue up behind the safety car, while the rest of the field had enough notice to divert to the pitlane for their first stop. The significance of these events was that both Vettel and Hamilton were able to make their first stops before their advantage over the rest of the field was nullified by catching the safety car, while Alonso, Massa and Kubica fell down the order. Hamilton's stop was for a replacement front wing. The safety car drove into the pit lane at the end of lap 14 and the cars were allowed to overtake. Vettel locked his tyre
caption: Sebastian Vettel won his second race of the 2010 season.
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