Runaway ride: Vettel on top

“Fantastic race — better than anything I could have imagined,’’ Vettel screamed over his car radio,before being handed the trophy. The F1 season has previously been marked by exhilarating overtaking,thanks to new technology and tyres. However,those additions failed to spice up Sunday’s race for the 85,127 fans at the notoriously hard to overtake America’s Cup harbor course,even with a new engine regulation put into place this weekend that did nothing to dampen Red Bull’s leading pace.

Instead,Vettel continued his dominating title defence with a sixth victory from eight races — and second place in the other two. “It’s incredible this achievement and the steps the team has made in the past 2 years,’’ the young German driver said before brushing off fears he could sit on his lead now.

“I don’t look at the (points) gap,it’s a long season. We’ve had a phenomenal season and we have to continue that way,that’s our target. The target is still to win races. “We have to keep doing what we do and stay hungry.’’

Bull run

Red Bull has won 18 of the past 30 GPs stretching to 2009,when Button won six of the first seven races on his way to the title for Brawn.

Hamilton,who had finished runner-up here the last three years,stayed fourth with 97 points. Alonso trails Vettel by a huge 99 points on 87 after a second runner-up finish in three races.

“I think second place is the maximum we can have in these days,so to be here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievement,’’ Alonso said after earning his first podium in Valencia. “We are definitely moving in the right direction,working to get closer to these guys.’’

Hamilton surrendered his third-place start with a terrible beginning as both Ferraris passed the McLaren driver,who has been under pressure to curb his aggressive driving style following incidents at the last two GPs.

“Damage control — we did as much as we could. We’re not fast enough,really,’’ said Hamilton,who was almost ready to write off his hopes of catching Vettel after finishing 46 seconds behind. “It’s finished really,in the sense of the championship it’s almost over already.’’

Button also surrendered sixth to Nico Rosberg at the first corner,but a sly pass later on recouped it to leave the McLarens trailing both the Red Bulls and Ferraris. Sergio Perez’s first race since crashing at Monaco yielded an 11th-place finish as Sauber opted for a one-stop strategy.

Sutil finishes ninth

Adrian Sutil matched his second best performance of the season by finishing ninth,earning two points for Force India,while Paul di Resta ended up outside the points bracket with 14th position. Sutil,who started 10th on the grid,had managed the same position in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix as well. His best performance of the season has been in Monaco GP last month.

Meanwhile,just when it looked like Michael Schumacher’s return was finally picking up,things have gone awry for the Mercedes driver. Schumacher followed up a fourth-place finish in Montreal with a 17th-place as the seven-time world champion again failed to reach the podium in his 27th race since coming out of retirement.

Renault driver Vitaly Petrov clipped Schumacher’s car early on in the race to force the 42-year-old German to the pits for a new front wing. That dropped Schumacher into 22nd at the street circuit where it is notoriously difficult to overtake.