Rate the race: European Grand Prix

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Last year’s European Grand Prix was rated the worst of the season. Was this year’s instalment any better?

Rate the European Grand Prix out of 10 and have your say about the race below.

Rate the 2009 European Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 - Perfect (2%)
  • 9 - Fantastic (3%)
  • 8 - Great (9%)
  • 7 - Good (18%)
  • 6 - Not bad (20%)
  • 5 - A bit dull (16%)
  • 4 - Often tedious (9%)
  • 3 - Boring (15%)
  • 2 - Rubbish (4%)
  • 1 - Terrible (4%)

Total Voters: 2,219

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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99 comments on “Rate the race: European Grand Prix”

  1. So boring I was wishing ITV were waking us up with the occaisional ad break.

  2. Keith, I think it’s time you put a seperate scale full of negative scores for races as boring as these :D

    1. yeah 2 poll’s

      1 for the race
      1 for the track

  3. Great result boring race

  4. *sigh*

    Booooring.

    No overtaking. RB only won because LH pit-crew stuffed up.
    Take the GP away from Valencia.

  5. I thought it was a pretty good race. You don’t always need lots of overtaking to have tension.

    Hamilton, Barrichello and Raikkonen all drove a great race. That’s a good thing to see too.

    No way I would call that boring.

  6. What a crappy race, how could McLaren not have the tyres ready? Barrchello really didnt deserve to win this race…

    1. A crappy one, cos McL failed? Interesting… :) Rubens DID deserve to win this race from any point of view.

  7. Boring, and made even worse by pathetic commentators on our national TV channel (not any kind of BBC).

    1. I know how you feal, i get that with the australian commentators but luckily it is only at the start, end and when they go and come back from ad brakes

      1. Victor, are you watching in Spain? Yes, they are very bad. But at least he got his ham sandwich! They were so excited to be in Spain, it was crazy.

        1. No, I’m from Romania. Our commentators are completely clueless… at least someone is trying to save them by also putting in a Romanian racing driver who is currently racing, as far as I know, in the World Series by Renault.

  8. …yesterday I did say “barring any surreptitious nastiness”..what a sham F1 is now!

  9. best race of the season

    1. If you say so yourself, “Luca”…

  10. I rated it ‘good’, but that is partly to do with the winning driver. The track is dull and there’s hardly any overtaking. I say get rid of it.

    1. i will give anyone $100 if they saw an overtake after lap 1. they should give the european gp back to nurburgring and get hockenheim back in as the german race. damn economic restrictions…

  11. Was there a single on-track overtake after the first lap? I didn’t see any, absolutely boring with the botch on Hamilton’s stop being the only excitement of the race. Drop Valencia!!!

  12. After watching this race i’ve come to the conclusion that kovi is possibly the worst ever formula 1 driver. The slaker must be kicked from the team immediately!!! The idiot couldn’t even delay barrichello before the 1st round of pit stops & yesterday after quali he was blabbing about mounting a challenge for a win. this guy is as useless badoer, maybe its a bit unfair for me to compare him with badoer, after all he’s racing after 10 long years. kovi is just not F1 material. After almost 2 years with mclaren. all he has to show is , a lucky podium at malasyia & a lucky win at hungary. This guy just doesn’t have the ballz to take on others.

    1. mp4, read James Allen’s rather prescient preview of Kovi’s dilemma. My impression at the start was that Kovi actually backed off a little to avoid passing LH (who was defending both of them from RB). He then evidently held his pace to keep RB back until LH was some 6 seconds ahead of the latter. Not defending him totally, his race performance is mediocre, but it seems unfair to pan him when he was stuck between proving his race strength and working to secure a LH victory (that should have happened!)

      1. I don’t buy that. McLaren is in no position to fight for either championship so what’s the point of one driver not fighting for the race win?

        1. Exactly!! the are sailing in the same boat, lewis & kovi. Not an excuse to be given by macca or kovi.

      2. At the end of the day he’s a racing driver. A racing driver never curbs his instincts. Its his career at stake at mclaren, if he really wanted to prove whitmarsh wrong he would have gone for it & overtaken hammi on the start. The fact that he held back to no avail just goes to show that he not formula 1 material. Ok once he knew that he couldn’t challenge hammi, at least he should have played shortgun. he failed to do that also. & i really dunno how kimi got past him!! at the finish rosberg was on his tail for god sake. I’ve had nuff of him. Honestly the guy is not worth his seat at mclaren. We need someone more aggressive. this guy is just boring. he’s not a racer, i’ve never ever seen him pull a overtaking maneuver on anyone till date, after all he’s driven for 2 top teams renault & mclaren. i dunno why whitmarsh supports him so vocally, if it were to be ron, we would have seen kovi back in espoo or vantaa or where ever he comes from.

        1. So you accept he may have backed off overtaking LH at the start and then blame him, if so, for sticking to team strategy?! By the way, the Observer interview with Lh today suggests McLaren/Hamilton were (are???) still working on the remote chance of Lewis winning the championship (!) Crazy but not entirely, entirely. If Hamilton win the next 6 races (extremely unlikely but not unthinkable) and Button maintains his performance of today (2 points), Hamilton wins! For this reason, I suspect that without mentioning such a laughable plan, McLaren were working towards a LH victory, not equal racing for both.

          1. Presuming RB doesn’t finish second or third in these races of course :0)

          2. So you accept he may have backed off overtaking LH at the start and then blame him

            i don’t accept the fact that he backed off, he shouldn’t have, i’m damn sure the team wouldn’t have told him to do so. just goes to show how useless he is. My only arguing point is that he fails to deliver in the races. He doesn’t seem to maintain that pressure that’s need to become a good racer. Either the guy is too nervous or talentless. and i think he’s the latter. not too many finnish drivers are talentless, but kovi is an exception. And regarding hammi’s title challenge, i hope you are not joking.

    2. At the finish Kovalainen was 20 seconds behind Hamilton. That’s really not than bad.

      It’s depressing though that people actually think that Kovalainen would have been holding up Barrichello. Just makes no sense

      1. So sorry to depress you Patrick, but why does that make no sense? It was the Brazilian TV assessment of the early part of the race, plus James Allen’s prediction. Kind of a supercilious response to an at least plausible argument.

        1. A) Kovalainen was obviously driving as fast as he could. He simply could not keep up with Hamilton
          B) If he wanted to hold Barrichello, he would have really done so.
          C) There was no reason for Kovalainen to hold Barrichello up and ruin his own race.

          It wasn’t James Allen’s prediction. He simply put the “conspiracy theory” forward as a possibility.

          Reality proved it wrong anyway.

      2. 20 seconds in formula one amounts upto several thousand light-years in astronomy my friend.

        1. OK, try reading carefully: I said I wasn’t defending HK’s race performance, which definitely seems to fade, incouding in this race. For me there’s no comparison between him and LH. But then you have to ask whether this doesn’t suit McLaren, at least if he can do the job of protecting LH? Often he’s failed, but he seems to be improving with his job under pressure. I really hope they go for Heidfeld next year, but slating Kovaleinen entirely seems to me really harsh.

      3. mclaren doesn’t care about having a good second driver. Just think about the Coulthard years. It was pathetic. They like to have just one driver to concentrate on. You can’t hire paracarri like kovi or coulthard and then ask them to perform, it’s not the driver’s fault.

        1. I don’t know why you think he’s talentless. He did very well at Renault and I think he’s the unlucky driver in F1! He makes the odd mistake and lets not forget that Lewis had a better spec car.
          BTW I thought the race was ok, better than last year. Hamilton deserved the win but I was happy to see Rubens to get a victory for all his hard work.

        2. McLaren wanted Roseberg next to Hamilton. They even want Schumacher back.

          It’s just utter nonsense that McLaren wouldn’t want 2 good drivers. They in fact DO and DID.

          Trouble is there aren’t that many top drivers in Formula 1. By definition of course because otherwis they wouldn;t have been top drivers.

  13. worst race ever. It was so boring I just wished it’d finish earlier to read mp4-19b’s stupid comments and forget about it

  14. Just 2 highlights: the start crash and Ham’s pitstop

    1. start crash? barely.

  15. I loved the race, mainly because lewis lost. i dont know why you are all so happy about the fueling ban… think how boring that race would be without strategy…

    1. There will still be strategy! just tyre strategy not fuel aswell

  16. 8 stars just for Ruben’s win and graet strategic battle!!

  17. Most boring race of the season so far.
    Once the first lap was over it was a procession that was only interrupted by a fuel rig failure for Vettel, then an engine failure, Nakajima’s puncture & McLaren bringing the tyres out late for Lewis.

    1. Agreed. Anyone who voted higher than ‘A bit dull’ must have been watching a different race than me.

  18. I think that if you time it precisely Rubens’ margin after the pitstops was more than the time Hamilton lost because of the tire mix-up.

  19. I only rated it boring and not terrible because of the result. It’s great that Rubens won, he really deserved it I think.

    1. Agree totally, I voted the same for the same reason. The track is diabolically bad.

      1. It’s clear that most people hate this track/race. but who can actually tell Bernie this? would love to send a massive f1fanatic email to him.

        1. Maybe a petition could be started, sort of saying:

          “We the fans of Formula 1 refuse to watch or attend, or support in anyway what so ever any future events held at the Valencia Street Circuit, for the following reasons:

          1.
          2.
          3.

          Blah, blah, blah”

          And everyone who agrees “signs” their name and when there is enough names it gets sent off to the FIA, the commercial rights holders, the TV stations that broadcast Formula 1, the teams, all the stakeholders.

          People power. Us the fans are just as important as any of the other stakeholders in Formula 1. We are majority, yet we are the silent majority. Maybe it’s time for the fans to stand up and tell the people in control what we want to see.

  20. So far, the most votes are for ‘not bad’. If that wasn’t bad, then what is???

    I thought the race was just as boring as last years, but the difference was the 2008 race was a rare dud, whilst in 2009 the majority of races since Bahrain have been rubbish.

    Sorry for my pessimism, but I’m just a bit fed up with boring races right now. Hopefully Spa will be much better, as it usually is.

  21. what is everyones problem with Lewis Hamilton?

    Are you all jealous of his girlfriend that you all hate him?

    The guy is a great driver sjees

    1. It’s mostly his race, then, well, I just don’t know. He’s nice, he’s kind, he’s polite, he’s the best driver in F1, he’s always thankful to the team, he got into F1 by winning every championship he entered from when he was 10 so it wasn’t a fluke, he isn’t a drunk or a womaniser, he doesn’t swear. He is a black man full of talent and confidence and that jars with a lot of people, some of them unconsciously.

      1. Oh yes and he’s gorgeous.

        mp4-19b, 31 is ancient isn’t it? She should be taken out and shot for being so old. And she isn’t taller than him and she is a beautiful woman.

      2. Hey there, I’m American, and Nicole Scherzinger isn’t idolized like you guys in F1 want to think. She’s in a craptastic pop group, and is probably only dating our dear Lewis for either a) publicity, or b) money. Just saying.

      3. S. Hughes, here, here. Win or lose for lewis, some people will always have a go at him. He’s doing what most would like to do, but it will never happen. He has the life that most, would like but will never have. And may be most of all he has a woman, that would never give them the time of day or a second glance.
        So it makes for the jealous remarks, but words don’t matter because as Kimmi is so fond of saying ” It won’t change anything”

        1. I’m not jealous (I am a girl), but I do think that Lewis deserves better. Does anyone else agree?

          1. Nicole seems a nice enough woman. Clearly Lewis seems to think so. The relationship looks serious, so she’s going to around for a long time. She is his choice so good luck to them.

    2. jealous of his girlfriend?? who would want a girlfriend who’s taller,uglier & 6 years older than you?

  22. I’m sorry but it was quite boring. Blown engines, tires, and pitstops don’t make for an exciting race when there’s nothing else going on. The circuit seems to be forgiving of mistakes, by which I mean it appears easier to maintain position in the event of a small mistake.

    Lewis continues to impress when he has to push.

  23. I feel so angry on behalf of Lewis – he had the win in the bag but a 4+ too long pit stop stymied him. That is just unacceptable. Lewis deserved that win. He lost through absolutely no fault of his own. What were McLaren thinking? As for Button – his true useless colours are showing now – managing 7th in the fastest car!

    1. Meh. S**t happens. Considering how bad his season was going this is a good result.

    2. If I remember correctly he was about 8 or 9 secs behind Rubens after the stops. RB’s laptimes when LH went in were very quick.

      1. rubens came out 10 seconds in front.

        even with 4 seconds longer, rubens had 2-4 seconds in the bag to take the position.

    3. I also think Jenson has been over valued up to this point but I don’t think this race can really be used as evidence. His position is the result of a qualifying mistake and a poor start – although we knew Kimi would get him with his KERS. I think he gave too much difference to Vettel who appeared to try to run him into the barrier at the start but if he hadn’t there might have been contact.

      What I think we really saw was the true nature of this circuit which seems to dictate that the running order after lap one is how the race is going to finish barring car or team failures.

      If Jenson is to prove himself truly worthy of being WDC this year, he needs to turn it around and put in a dominant performance. I’m not sure he can. Right now my evaluation of him is as a second tier driver on the level of Rosberg and Kubica. With Alonso and Hamilton (and Kimi when he’s motivated) being in the top tier.

  24. My vote was for “a bit boring”. Mistake. Upon further review it really was Boring with a capital B. Yeah its cool that Reubens won. Hamilton would have if not for the botched pit stop. Thats racing though. Heikki will probably lose his seat. Nico was all over him in an inferior car. Looked like Alonso drove a solid race. With the exception of 1 grandstand looked like the spectators stayed away in droves. No one, hardly, on roof tops. Nothing but concrete walls. Like Detroit in the 80’s. What does Bernie care as long as he gets his piece?
    Funniest moment of the race: Badoer getting out of one of the Red Bulls way in pit exit AFTER HE HAD CROSSED THE ACCELERATION LINE!!!! Oh man!! That was too funny!!

    1. It was Grosjean’s Renault, and then he got a drive through penalty for crossing the white line at pit exit.

      Just like Bernie said last year after Singapore, Ferrari provided the clown.

  25. It may have been boring but RB winning put a smile on my face.

  26. RB would have caught LH without the Mclaren mess up in the pits. He was faster in the 2nd and 3rd sections of the race.It was not the best race but just because Saint Lewis of Mclaren and all things English did’nt win it does not make the race dull. All teams have made errors in the pits, just a shame Mclaren have made more than most.
    all the same well done Rubens on winning a rather dull race.

    1. i don’t care if lewis lost. but this useless kovi shouldn’t be let of the hook. he’ll make ever little excuse available in his brain to prolong his career at mclaren. i personally believe, even with good car under him, he’ll not deliver. cuz he’s an overgrown kid with no talent.

  27. This race was quite funny for being so dull. First off, I’m glad that Rubens won. He’s been in JB’s shadow for too long now. He has passion, and seems to truly love the sport.
    But, yes, the circuit was really boring. Nothing exciting happened. Although I got a laugh from “BAD” Badoer…Epic fail for Ferrari! Although they did get a podium with Kimi, aka the most enthusiastic person in F1. Hoot hoot. Lewis was upset that he couldn’t do the victory dance with Nicole Whatever-her-last-name-is. Nico the Pretty Boy is totally going to replace Kovalainen (who could have done much better); I can feel it in my bones. And what about Jenson, Sebastian, and Mark? Well, the Red Bulls can say goodbye to the WDC, especially Vettel. Poor boy. We’ll just see how everything shapes up for the rest of the season.
    Sorry for the rambling comment. All in all, it was a pretty entertaining race considering that it was Valencia…they should stick to what they do best: growing oranges.

    1. agreed!!

      …….>>>get rid of kovi
      …….>>>get rid of valencia
      …….>>>ban nicole from entering the pitlane

      ( guess hammi was to eager to have a glance at her one lap too early!)

      1. LOL…Lewis was too eager to see his cougar that he lost the race! I bet he feels bad now

  28. Prisoner Monkeys
    23rd August 2009, 16:02

    I think that if they made a few changes to the circuit, Valencia could at least produce a semi-decent race. Bring the barriers in closer and reprofile tefirst sector so that the cars go flat out to the bridge. Iron out the switcback to a fast chicane like the one in Melbourne, then change the final bend to a blind double-apex by moving the Start Line forwards a little.

    1. I totally agree the first sector is boring. They could create some fast bends maybe with lifting throttle. Last bit of the track is better but too forgiving.

  29. For me, it was a let-down. I couldn’t call whether Barrichello or Hamilton were going to get ahead – and if it had been Barrichello just ahead of a KERS-powered Hamilton, we’d have had some fun. Seeing it decided by a silly pit lane fumble was massively disappointing. And apart from that, nothing of any consequence happened.

  30. Brilliant to see Rubens winning. His pressure on the Macca’s made the race interesting. Would of been nice to see how close he and LH were without the missing tyres. I reckon it would of been very close, if not slightly in Rubens favour, looking at the lap times he was doing at that point.

    By the way, why is this track compared to Monaco? It has no camber, and nothing challenging about the track at all. Hungary is a more interesting race track!

  31. Even Ben Edwards would have had trouble commentating & making this one sound exciting :)

  32. Was actually a very good and interesting race. Was certainly better than last year!

  33. I voted Boring – I think I’ll stop watching GP2 races before F1 race as without it I can think that overtaking on such track is impossible…

    This is alongside with Bahrain worst race of the season so far.

  34. I thought it was a decent race. Barrichello and Hamilton had a good battle. A safety car would have made things more interesting though.

  35. actually i believe Singapore’s track layout is as useless as valencia, just coz its run under the lights it’s said to be great & everything. actually without piquet’s crash & massa’s pitstop blunder the race there would have been just like the race here at valencia.

    1. On the bright side at least Singapore has bumbs in the breaking zones and hard kerbs.

      Oh hang on… Had

  36. Was it just me, or the summer F1 break, but boy Jonathan Leg-End’s commentary was really irritating me today. Please somebody shut him up!!!

    Unfortunately, I do want to hear Martin Brundle, so switching the commentary to 5Live (or no commentary) is not a good option.

  37. The interest today came mostly from blunders and strategy rather than on track racing. That doesn’t bode well in my book.

    I think it looks a cool place but the circuit is very boring, lacks character. I would have thought if they wanted to they could make some major changes to the circuit layout, barriers and track landscaping to make for a more interesting race that would allow more overtaking. So rather than ditch Valencia all together I would like major track changes.

  38. Bit disappointed Lewis did’nt win. The team lost it for him. But 2nd is better than no points, he would have settled for 2nd during the lean times. So well done to Lewis. I really like Kovi, but he has to go, what a disappointment. Since Lewis is not going to win the championship. I’ll be rooting for Ruben’s, well done to him, hope he can pull it off.

  39. A popular result, nice work by Rubens and Kimi. That was as exciting as a strategic race gets (not very).
    But mostly it was a gridful of wusses who only try to pass when told to, on a track that badly needs a passing place added somewhere in the first half of the lap.

  40. I actually think it was an ok race, although i did have a bet on with my friend that lewis wouldnt win the race so that probably made the hamilton – Barrichello battle more interesting… It would have been better if they had brought out a safety car after Nakajimas incident.

  41. Yes the race was a bit dull. I was happy to see Kimi produce a very solid drive. And how about Rosberg! He’s been stringing together some very good finishes lately-very nice to see!

  42. Terrible: The same score as I gave the race at the Nurburgring but I wish I’d scored that race higher as this was much much more boring, probably the worst race I’ve seen since the Schumacher years which is ironic as if he had raced here it would have been more interesting!!

  43. I thought it was a good race. To me it seemed to be at the same point of most F1 Races. Little to no overtakeing. And the race was decided in the pits by a mistake. I am glad to see RB win after 5 year drought.

  44. I simply cannot believe that, at the time of writing, 195 people thought that the race was good

  45. I voted 3 for boring. This race was a snooze fest. I was asleep by about halfway through, after all it was 11pm where I live.

    The problem is the track in my opinion, it’s just not very good. It’s too wide to be a street circuit, but yet there is no passing, there is also too much run off for a street circuit. One of the main appeals, from a spectator point of view is that typically a street circuit is less forgiving.

    There is also no atmosphere, everytime the TV footage crossed to the people in the pool at the top of a building watching the race, they looked like they were about to fall asleep.

  46. Boring. I fell asleep during this race. First time I’ve ever done that.

  47. i went last year and the best bit was going to the beach after the race. you can’t do that at Silverstone!!!!

  48. rubens win was fantastic.

    if you pulled rubens performance out of the race, it was the most boring race ever. not a single overtake. can only hope it wont get its contract renewed.

    1. Unfortunately it has just been announced that its contract has been extended by five years.

  49. I have to admit for me that was one of the most boring races of the season. Were there any overtakes for position on the track after the first lap apart from people spinning or Button letting Webber through.

    It was nice to see Barrichello get his first win of the season though, and I think he would have won even if Hamilton had a perfect second stop.

    The worst news of the day was that Valencia has signed a deal to host the European Grand Prix for the next 5 years.

  50. it was like the past few years where nobody could pass anyone apart from in the pits. i did a lovely jigsaw during the second half.

  51. Did anyone overtakee anyone on the track ? Even a single overtaking move ?

    Valencia has to take the prize for the most boring current circuit.

  52. the worst race of the 2010 season so far i give 4/10 for this race..

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