In what could be described as the dullest race of the 2011 season Sebastian Vettel took a lights to flag victory to extend his world drivers championship lead to 77 points. The German can afford to take the next three races off and still come back with at least a two point lead probably more as Ferrari & McLaren will take points off each other. Vettel is world champion elect; having a three race wins points lead after eight races has led many of the leading drivers to give up on the title hunt after today’s race in Valencia. Fernando Alonso drove an excellent race bringing his Ferrari home in second place while team mate Felipe Massa finished in fifth place with Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren being sandwiched between the Ferrari’s in fourth place, down one place from his starting position. McLaren team mate Jenson Button had struggled with oversteer all race long and his KERS system also failed in the second half of the race but maintained his starting position of sixth. For me the only exciting moments of the race was Jenson’s overtake of Nico Rosberg for sixth place early on and Fernando Alonso’s overtake of Mark Webber for second place. Speculation that Lewis Hamilton is looking for a move away from McLaren (into a Red Bull) is rife again after his comments suggesting he would take a pay-cut to drive a winning car! On the same day; circuit owners have threatened to not host a Grand Prix and move to IRL/Indycar instead if the new V6 engine formula goes ahead as planned. I find it ridiculous that these track owners are making assumptions that the new engine formula will not sound ‘like F1’ without hearing the engines; back in the day we had V6 turbo engines and they sounded fantastic. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Bernie Ecclestone has been stirring up the hornets nest; we already know that he has urged the teams to protest the new engine regulations, personally I’d rather get rid of the current V8s!