RBS ambassador Sir Jackie Stewart would love to have seen Ferrari's Felipe Massa face his penalty on the track rather than through Ferrari's finances – and wonders if the sport's top brass are going soft on the Italian team.
"Felipe Massa drove a very, very good race. He did not seem to be truly threatened, and drove fairly faultlessly with the exception of his second pit stop – the Make it happen moment of the race for me. I don't know who was at fault: the driver or, more likely, the team.
Massa was subsequently fined, but the stewards had all the TV replays, and they should have made a decision during the race. Let's imagine that Massa had been given a drive-through penalty, which would have cost him about 15 seconds. He could have gone back out and regained that lost time over Lewis Hamilton.
Remember in Germany, Hamilton had to go out after his last pit stop and win it all over again. A similar thing could have happened in Valencia if the stewards had taken a decision at the time. I would say it was a controversial decision, and there are some people who would say that Ferrari are looked upon more favourably than other teams by the governing body.
Meanwhile, it's always nice to visit a new venue, although the paddock area in Valencia doesn't have the charm and glamour of Monte Carlo. Time will tell whether Spain's economy can afford two Grands Prix. In 1993, there were two in the UK, and they both lost a considerable amount of money. There was a capacity crowd in Valencia, though, and that bodes well.
Although the drivers are all new to the circuit, after about 20 practice laps they will all have got down to a competitive time. These are the best racing drivers in the world. The track is very fast for a street circuit. There are very few run-off areas, and there are very high barriers very close to the racetrack. There were remarkably few errors made, because the drivers knew that the penalty was big – they were going hit a concrete wall. So, in practice, qualifying and the race, you didn't see as many 'offs' as you would on a circuit with big gravel traps and crash barriers with deformable structures. There are not many corners that I would call challenging, which meant that there wasn't much racing going on and, overall, it was rather a dull race."
