The Edd Blog

There's always a sense of intrigue surrounding the first visit to a new circuit, particularly a track like Valencia which is pretty much virgin asphalt. Of course, this is the world of Formula One, so what would normally be a sense of excitement and wonder manifested itself in a slightly different way to most other motorsport categories, with many convinced that some kind of motor-racing Armageddon was on the cards.

Fortunately, the track surface didn't break up, the tyres didn't suffer instant punctures, and the swingbridge didn't part at an inappropriate moment and drop a car into the harbour. Almost disappointingly to the naysayers, save for an attempt by a lone spectator to get onto the track on Friday, everything went to plan and the general consensus was that the organisers had done a good job.

This is no surprise, as F1 always has a certain sense of almost panic about new races, and there was plenty of concern, especially when Valencia's Friday morning rush-hour traffic had the temerity to create a few queues on the way into the circuit.

Yes, the track was rough around the edges - the circuit reverberated with the sound of sundry drilling, hammering and sawing throughout Thursday, and car parks mysteriously moved overnight, but by the time Robert Kubica pulled onto the track during Friday morning's first free practice it was business as usual.

Spectators at the European Grand Prix © LAT

Except, of course, off-track, where the F1 circus had to go to the effort of finding a new round of restaurants to eat at - doubtless something which went a long way to explaining the irritation in spite of there being plenty of good ones on offer.

With 25 turns and relatively few visual markers, it took a while for the drivers to get to grips with the circuit - a few even blamed forgetting where they were for the odd moment on Friday.

Fortunately, none of the 20 repeated the efforts of a tin-top driver who shall remain nameless who had learned Porto's Boavista track from a video uploaded last year, only to discover that an extra loop had been added which turned a previously flat-left kink into a 90-degree right with predictable consequences on his first lap of practice.

But not even double world champions were immune from the odd moment of bafflement - not that it led to any kind of brush with the wall.

"Going into Turn 12 and going to Turn 17, the two longest straights are very similar," said Fernando Alonso on Friday. "So one time I though I was in Turn 17 and I was in Turn 12 and I missed the apex, and vice versa!"

But aside from the odd navigational blunder, none of which came close to ending up with an Alberto Ascari-style visit to an F1 harbour, the track went down very well. Granted, it wasn't quite Monaco in terms of its slickness and although the marshals were more than well equipped, they hadn't yet built up the experience on this track to spirit walled cars away in the blink of an eye, leading to plenty of red flags and safety cars during the weekend.

Not, of course, during the grand prix itself, which passed by without a hitch. By the standards that street circuits are judged away from the principality, it was a success. If you ignore the fact the race was a procession, of course.

There was plenty of criticism of the track's relative lack of character - and inevitably there were those who compared the harbour-front circuit unfavourably with Monaco. Trouble is, if you tried to put on a grand prix on a track like Monaco without almost nine decades of history sanctifying it, you'd be laughed out of town.

Concrete blocks and fences are par for the course with contemporary street circuits and, disappointing as it was that the amount of run-off on the circuit meant that the much-anticipated carnage didn't come to pass, you can't really fault it if you judge it by the standards by which it was built.

The most experienced street racer in the field, Scuderia Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais, who has competed on street circuits from Surfers Paradise to Pau, Toronto to San Jose, and Macau to Houston during his career, was impressed by the track and its operational standards, particularly after some of the rough and ready examples he experienced during his five-year Champ Car career.

Sebastien Bourdais crosses the bridge in his Toro Rosso © LAT

"In the States you have ten different surfaces and very bumpy places on street tracks," said Bourdais. "The one it compares to best is probably Las Vegas, which we had only once in Champ Car last year, because it was nicely paved.

"Here in Valencia we have the same asphalt, but it's very wide and there are a lot of corners. It's quite challenging but it's very slow as well - you only have two fast corners."

This is the character of Valencia - it is part of a new generation of street tracks which would be better described as "urban". Time was, you would simply link a few streets together in a circuit and you have a track. Inevitably, you are bound largely by the qualities of your streets - just take a look at the tiresome Phoenix circuit which blighted F1 from 1989-1991 which was largely made up of 90-degree corners - but today things are a little different.

Only a tiny section of the Valencia street track was a pre-existing road, meaning that it could be built very much to conform with contemporary F1 track regulations. You can curse Hermann Tilke all you like, but he is charged with designing the tracks to FIA standards, and you can't blame him for creating the required run-off areas where possible (he's a regular on the Nordschleife for the Nurburgring 24 Hours so you can't accuse him of not appreciating a great no-holds barred track.)

As for the racing, well, let's say it wasn't the best showcase for the circuit. The grand prix was not a great spectacle, and it didn't help the atmosphere when Alonso pulled into the pits at the end of lap one after a concertina effect at the fast left-right esses had left Kazuki Nakajima with nowhere to go other than clobbering Alonso's right-rear wheel.

With the popularity of F1 in Spain very much on Alonso's shoulders, it's essential that Spain's main man gets back into a grand prix car that's worthy of his talents soon or it's going to be hard to see the country maintaining two races in the long-term. The Madrid air crash on the Wednesday before didn't help the vibe either.

There's clearly some way to go before the Valencia street race really gets the atmosphere this kind of race deserves. A largely empty harbour - not helped by a mooring fee understood to be around $60,000 per day - meant that the Monaco vibe was conspicuously absent. What's more, the city itself didn't have the feel of one going Formula One crazy.

Maybe it's because Alonso was in a car in which he has a battle on his hands even to score points, let alone make the podium. Maybe it's because the event will take a few years to bed in. Maybe it's because the race was one of the least exciting of the year.

Whatever the reasons, F1 should give the event a few more years before making a final judgement. Doubtless the inaugural Monaco Grand Prix in 1929 wasn't quite the glitzy party weekend we know today. There's no doubt that Valencia will get there given time.

So it's a case of so far, so good for Valencia. With the European race safely in the books, F1 can look to next month's inaugural Singapore Grand Prix. So at least there's another new street event for the sport to start panicking about.