Yep, that dreadful night when Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek sent out an untried line-up in an untried formation, shifting from the usual defensive and counter-attacking tactics to ... what it was exactly no-one quite knows, because it was neither defensive nor attacking. The result? Two goals to the Germans in the first half, an unfortunate red card to Tim Cahill and two more goals to Die Mannschaft in the second, and an immediate minus-four goal deficit which ultimately cost Australia progression into the second round.

Ghana, which pipped Australia to second place in Group D, and which the Socceroos should have beaten with only ten men, are now into the quarter-finals and in with a fair shout of going to the semis. Oh how it hurts. But if ever there was an example of one making one’s own luck, this was it. Had the Aussies stepped out against the Germans in confident mood rather than a nothing mindset, who knows what may have happened? Instead they had to fight a doomed rearguard action in their remaining group matches.

Any Australian football and F1 fanatic (such as myself) could not have failed to draw parallels whilst watching the European GP. Vettel’s victory was overshadowed by two things: one, the controversy over the safety car deployment, and two, the reason the safety car was out there in the first place. This was the race where Mark Webber’s hard-won championship-chasing momentum over the last four races came to a shuddering halt in a way which no-one could have predicted.

Vettel had pipped Webber for pole, but unlike the 0.2s or 0.3s margin that Sebastian enjoyed last year, the gap between them was only 0.075s. There was nothing in it. Mark started on the dirty side of the track and predictably lost out to Lewis Hamilton on the drag to turn two - still not overly a cause for concern. But then he let both Ferraris slip past, spent the next few corners in dreamland, and was 9th by the end of the first lap. This being Valencia where overtaking is so rare, his race was as good as over.

It soon was. A gamble to make an early tyre change already backfired when the front left wheel got stuck. And then came the gigantic collision with Heikki Kovalainen which will almost certainly go unbeaten as the most spectacular crash of the year. It not only mirrored an accident in the GP2 race a few hours earlier, but it had overtones of the last-lap incident between Christian Fittipaldi and Pierluigi Martini at Monza in 1993, and the collision between Riccardo Patrese and Gerhard Berger at Estoril in 1992.

It was a racing incident, pure and simple. Kovalainen had the right to fight for his spot, although arguably discretion would have been the better part of valour when a Lotus was being hounded by a Red Bull, especially if his remarkably early braking point was where the Finn would normally have to brake. He was never going to stand a chance against Webber for long. Then again, Mark badly misjudged, and arguably he was hugging Heikki’s slipstream unnecessarily tightly and left himself no margin.

The Valencia track layout was also a contributing factor. The circuit has already proven to be a resounding failure in that it causes field-spread and invites little overtaking; this was the third race in a row here that was largely bereft of action. And then there are the not-straight straights that lead into braking zones. When one straight-lines all these kinks, as everyone will, you end up wandering from one side of the track to the other. That’s how come Kovalainen ended up in the middle of the circuit in the first place.

But ultimately, Webber was in this terrible position because of his neither defensive nor attacking attitude on the first lap, and from there things snowballed. He is now 24 points behind Hamilton, 18 behind Jenson Button, and, perhaps most crucially, 12 behind Vettel who has regained ascendancy in the Red Bull camp. Without giving Sebastian’s win short shrift, he controlled this race well (apart from the brake lock-up at the restart) and deserved to win. He has been threatening a victory like this from pole all year.

This was exactly the kind of momentum swing that Webber would have been hoping to avoid. And while he has already fought back from this kind of points deficit once this season when he won in Spain and Monaco, that was when the championship landscape was still evolving. Now it seems clear that it will be between two teams and four drivers plus Fernando Alonso, and gaps will be harder to chase down. Valencia may well turn out to be Webber’s Durban disaster. He is fighting a rearguard action from here.

One final word about Vettel though. Some people on the F1 Rejects forum have pointed out how his one-fingered victory salute was seemingly more exaggerated after both qualifying and the race; that and his cries over the radio certainly did seem to be laced with more aggression than usual. He seems to have taken his failure to win since Malaysia quite personally, as if he has been affronted. Don’t think that this isn’t all-out war between the five title contenders this year. Some serious egos are on the line.

Behind Vettel, the other positions were largely decided by pit strategy and the safety car debacle. The problem came about because, given where Webber’s accident had occurred, when the safety car was deployed the leaders were just finishing the lap. Vettel passed the safety car before it emerged, and could do a full lap without getting held up. Hamilton could have made it as well but hesitated, got pipped by the safety car to the control line, and copped a penalty for driving past anyway. More on this in a moment.

The Ferraris of Alonso and Felipe Massa did get stuck for a lap. But behind them, Button and everyone else following were just approaching pit entry when the safety car was deployed, dived in for their one and only tyre stops, and gained massively. The nine cars that did this all ultimately earned a token five-second penalty for not having slowed down sufficiently to meet the yellow-flag delta time, but given how close they were to the pits, what were they realistically to do?

The real issue is that the one safety car deployment had four completely different impacts: one for Vettel, one for Hamilton, one for the Ferraris, and one for the rest of the field. How is that remotely fair? This is not an endurance event where the swings and roundabouts of safety car interventions even themselves out. The overriding principle is that the safety car picks up the leader. Sometimes the leader is caught and those further back can leap into the pits. So be it if that happens; that’s only two different outcomes.

If Button and those behind him had been able to pit, but all of Vettel, Hamilton and the Ferraris had been held up, there would be less controversy. The point is that Vettel, the leader, was also allowed to get away, and in practice so did Hamilton in the end, and the only two who got stuck were the Ferraris running 3rd and 4th. Even though Maranello has had the rub of the green go their way often in the past, and their post-race conspiracy theories were over the top, a poor injustice had been done.

Either the Ferraris should also have been waved past quickly, or the safety car should not have passed the control line until it could pick up the leader. Alternatively a back-up safety car could have been stationed halfway around the track to catch Vettel. Quite simply, the basic principle was not followed, and race control’s fumbling over this safety car deployment resulted in two specific cars being disadvantaged, and a lot of unnecessary controversy. Race control picks up the 'Reject of the Race' award as a result.

Officialdom did not cover itself in glory because then the stewards got into the act with their mishandling of Hamilton’s drive-through penalty. By the time it was imposed, Kamui Kobayashi had so held up the rest of the field that Hamilton kept his 2nd place. Yes it spoilt a duel for the lead but it is unlikely that Lewis would have ever passed Vettel on track. So the overall impression was that Hamilton was effectively not penalised at all for something that should have been so cut and dry.

Some have compared the situation to Webber’s penalty in Germany last year, which was also applied at a time when Kovalainen had so held back everyone else that Webber did not lose a place. However, an argument can be made that that was a harder question of driving ethics that needed closer examination; this was a yes/no question as to who got to the control line first. The disquiet over Lewis’ penalty took the attention away from a third straight excellent race from the Englishman which cemented his championship lead.

Button is still right in the mix though with his third podium in succession and his fifth for the season, the same number as his team-mate. He inherited 3rd once Kobayashi finally pitted, having been unable to pass on track the man who had been eliminated in Q1. Having said that, 1st to 18th was only split by 1.2s in Q1, but nevertheless that tells you all you need to know about how poor the Valencia circuit is for racing. Just like last year, Jenson’s street smarts on race day keep on keeping him in the hunt for points.

Kobayashi was undoubtedly the star of the afternoon, however, thanks to his audacious strategy that saw him run for as long as possible on one set of primes, which elevated him to 3rd where he stayed for most of the race. Given the field-spread around this circuit, this was always a strategy that was going to work because he would build a large enough gap to make his stop, remain in the points, and make best use of the options at the death. But it needed Kamui to not put a foot wrong, and the Japanese driver obliged.

The best news, though, was that the Kobayashi who had so impressed in Brazil and Abu Dhabi last year, and who had been muted by the pace and reliability deficiencies of the Sauber this year, was back with a vengeance in the closing laps. His last-gasp passes on Alonso and Sebastien Buemi were as decisive as they were courageous. If you had to pick three drivers on the grid to pull off a passing manoeuvre for you, on recent form you would have to choose Button, Hamilton and Kobayashi. Now that’s high praise.

But here’s a thought: since the start/finish line coincided with the end of the pit lane, was there anything to stop Sauber from bringing Kobayashi in on the last lap, such that he would fulfil his obligation to run the options by trundling down the pit lane? No doubt that’s against the spirit of the regulations, but I am not sure that that is expressly forbidden either. At any rate, it was almost a double celebration for Sauber, with Pedro de la Rosa 10th on the road until his 5s penalty dropped him back down to 12th.

Whilst Kobayashi was capturing the headlines, Rubens Barrichello was scoring easily Williams’ best finish of the year in 4th. And this was not just a fluke of the safety car situation either; both he and Nico Hulkenberg had qualified in the top ten (and in fact recorded the exact same time in Q3) and were always on course for solid points, until the young German retired much to his frustration. Everyone had written Williams off in the wake of their recent performances. Was this just a one-off on a street track?

Or did it represent a massive development leap, and if so, was it a matter of Williams being on a different development cycle such that they will fall back again later when others improve? Or have they genuinely unlocked something with the FW32? The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, and with the solid but unspectacular engineering staff at their disposal, it is probably unrealistic to expect Williams to be the fifth best team at every round. But it’s nice to see while it lasts.

Renault and Robert Kubica may have been slightly disappointed to finish 5th, having looked in contention for pole for most of practice and qualifying until Robert went slower in Q3 than he did in Q1 or Q2. But he was one of the winners out of the safety car period, whereas team-mate Vitaly Petrov, who had also made it into Q3, lost out by having to queue behind his team-mate even before his eventual 5s penalty was imposed. Still, Renault continue to be in contention behind the top two teams on all kinds of circuits.

It was a similar story for Force India, with Adrian Sutil gaining out of the safety car intervention to eventually finish 6th, but Vitantonio Liuzzi suffering by having to queue. But despite this being Sutil’s sixth points finish in the last seven races, 13th and 14th on the grid would have the team a little worried. Renault are now permanent fixtures in the top ten but on any given Sunday it’s an ever-closer tussle with Williams, Toro Rosso, Sauber and (on current form) Mercedes in the midfield.

Buemi was another one who made good use of the safety car, and he remained calm despite Alonso’s pressure for the rest of the race although his 5s penalty put the Ferrari in front. Three points finishes in four races for the Swiss driver reflects how he is reasserting himself at Toro Rosso after Jaime Alguersuari impressed early on. This was the first track that Alguersuari had already raced on before in F1, and he maintained his 100% reliability record this year, having finished between 9th and 13th in every race.

Ferrari have obviously been outspoken about how they were hurt by the safety car, as for the rest of the race they were mere midfield spectators. Although on pace they were again able to challenge the Red Bulls and McLarens, one gets the feeling that they are at their maximum simply to keep up, but the next development phase will always keep the top two teams one step ahead. At least the new parts on the F10 actually seem to improve the car; the same can’t be said for Mercedes.

Were it not for race control screwing up the safety car deployment, and the fact that Michael Schumacher had already won ROTR at the last race, then Mercedes would have been a shoe-in for the award. 12th for Nico Rosberg and 15th for Schumi marked the team’s worst qualifying performance of the year as developments have taken the car two steps back, having been the third best in the field in Turkey. As in Canada, the problem was in getting the tyres to work.

Bear in mind that Brawn GP had the same issue last year, with mid-season upgrades that were just not conducive to getting the Bridgestone tyres into the zone. There is something which is not being properly understood. Strategically Ross Brawn is off the ball as well. Schumacher started on the prime tyres and was up to 3rd in front of Kobayashi when the safety car came out. There was no reason why he could not follow the same strategy as Sauber and score some decent points.

Instead, Michael was brought in for super-softs under the safety car. Afterwards the team blamed the red light at the end of pit lane which dropped Schumacher right down the field for destroying their strategy. But what was the point of switching to the options? So that he could pit again in a lap or two under the safety car to put the primes back on? That would still have dropped him to the back, without anyone in front of him needing to stop again. Mercedes’ tactics made zero sense.

Lotus claimed to celebrating their 500th GP, although in reality the question of whether this current incarnation is really a continuation of the previous team or should be treated as a different entity is one which most people have put into the too hard basket. It was another somewhat disappointing race result, not only with Kovalainen’s incident but also with Jarno Trulli getting his front wing trodden on at the first corner and finishing last and four laps adrift.

The other thing which could become a dilemma for the team from now on is that they remain somewhat off the pace of the other midfield teams, but they now also have a significant gap back to the Virgins and the HRTs. There’s increasingly little point seeing themselves as being in a race with the other new teams, but at the same time they can’t get too bullish about fighting those in front, or else they will get themselves involved in more incidents like the one with Webber if ambition exceeds the car’s capabilities.

Both the Virgins and HRTs seemed to be getting in the way of the leaders a lot more in Valencia than they have done at some other tracks. Not only was this because they were battling on track, most notably Timo Glock and Bruno Senna in front of Kobayashi, but perhaps again this was also a function of the track layout, with all these kinks in flat-out stretches. Unlike a genuine straight, when backmarkers are prepared to move off line, it’s harder for a slower car to miss the apex of a kink and go onto the marbles.

For the first time all year Glock was outshone by Lucas di Grassi, who must have read our criticisms as he finally had his first impressive race in F1. Not only did he out-qualify his team-mate, he raced strongly on a Kobayashi-like strategy and was only a lap down. Karun Chandhok also had Senna’s measure in qualifying and the race, and looked set to finish ahead of Glock after a long stint on one set of primes, until the Virgin driver took the place on the last lap.