Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso won the European Grand Prix in front of his adoring Spanish crowd in Valencia from 11th place on the starting grid after race leader; Sebastian Vettel retired with a alternator failure in his RB8. Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen drove a sensible race inheriting second place because of the rate of attrition ahead of him while Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher claimed his first podium finish since his return to F1 2 1/2 years ago, silencing his doubters; me included!
Mark Webber finished in an excellent fourth place having to come from 19th on the starting grid; although his finishing position was helped by Romain Grosjean (alternator failure) and Lewis Hamiltons’ (crash) retirements during the closing laps. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg brought his car home in a excellent fifth place ahead of fellow German Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes.
The second Force India of Paul di Resta finished the race in seventh place ahead of the McLaren of Jenson Button; another relatively poor weekend for the Briton; team mate Hamilton was running in a strong third place before Maldonado’s rash move put him in the wall! Sauber’s Sergio Perez finished the race in ninth place ahead of Maldonado; who was later penalised for his collision with Hamilton, promoting Williams team mate, Bruno Senna upto 10th place to claim a much needed point!
Onto football; England have been knocked out of Euro 2012 on penalties after a 0 – 0 stalemate after extra time. I didn’t watch the game as I was in the process of moving home when the match took place, so this won’t be an in depth review. From what I have read on the Twittersphere; England were poor and deserved to ultimately lose; England defended well; it seems that is the only reason that it went to penalties. Again, it looks like England lack potency in the final third!
Italy eventually won 2 – 4 on penalties; England’s Ashley Young hit the bar and Ashley Cole saw his shot saved to gift the Italians the win. Historically England fail on penalties; in a way I am happy that England went out in the quarter finals; as they’d have faced Germany in the semi’s and probably would’ve been embarrassed (on current form) by what looks like an excellent German side.
I am pretty apathetic about England’s exit from the Euro Tournament; there was absolutely no expectation for England to do well in the tournament. I still think that Hodgson is the wrong person to guide England to glory and frankly the pool of players eligible to play for England is getting smaller and smaller with the top tier teams bringing in more and more foreign talent meaning less grass roots talent make it into first team football! Oh, well, let’s look forward to the World Cup!