The safety car was deployed following a large accident involving Vettel's teammate Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen on the ninth lap.

By gaining the most points from the race, McLaren extended their lead in the World Constructors' Championship to thirty over Red Bull.

[7] Despite being afflicted with reliability issues with his Red Bull car, Vettel said there was no reason for him or his team to panic and was looking forward to the European Grand Prix in Valencia.

[9] Mercedes elected not to bring a new gearbox casing, but introduced a new rear diffuser to fully utilise the air blowing from the car's exhaust.

[11] After running the F-duct device (which increases a car's top speed) in Friday practice, Red Bull decided to use it for the remainder of the weekend.

For this occasion, the team changed the usual decoration of its car, including the number 500 between laurels on both sides of the rear of the Lotus T127.

[15] Nico Rosberg recorded the first session's fastest lap with a time of 1 minute and 41.175 seconds, ahead of McLaren teammates Hamilton and Button.

Robert Kubica, Massa, Vettel, Webber, Michael Schumacher, Alonso and Rubens Barrichello rounded out the session's top-ten drivers.

[16] Bruno Senna's left-side view mirror became detached from his Hispania F110, which grazed his helmet, and was run over by Sébastien Buemi heading into turn 12, which caused the session to be stopped to allow marshals to clear the track of debris.

[17] Massa caused the session to be disrupted after spinning in the fourth corner and narrowly avoided making contact with a barrier.

Timo Glock's lost the use of his car's fifth gear and pulled over to the side of the track at turn twelve to prematurely end his running.

Vitaly Petrov spun at the exit of turn 14 and reversed his car to rejoin the circuit, avoiding the need for a red-flag.

[20] Hamilton qualified third but locked his rear tyres on his final timed lap heading into turn 17 and slowed, preventing him from improving his grid position.

[22] He was disappointed as he had Barrichello ahead of him driving towards turn 25 on his final timed lap which slowed Buemi and lost him two tenths of a second.

[21] Kamui Kobayashi failed to advance beyond the first session;[22] he flat-spotted his front super soft compound tyres on his first timed lap which caused him to feel vibrations in his car.

[21] The two Lotus cars of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen qualified in 19th and 20th positions, ahead of both Virgin drivers Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock in 21st and 22nd.

When the five red lights extinguished to signal the start of the race, Vettel maintained his pole position advantage heading into the second corner.

[27] At the end of the first lap, Vettel led from Hamilton, Alonso, Massa, Kubica, Button, Barrichello, Hülkenberg, Webber, Buemi, Schumacher, Sutil, Liuzzi, Rosberg, Petrov, Alguersuari, de la Rosa, Kobayashi, Kovalainen, di Grassi, Glock, Chandhok, Senna and Trulli.

[28] Webber made an early pit stop on lap seven for the medium compound tyres but his crew had a minor problem fitting his left-front wheel which meant he was stationary for 7.9 seconds, and rejoined in 18th position.

[29][30] Webber's car landed on its nose, careered into the turn 12 run-off area at high speed and collided with a tyre barrier.

[25] Kubica, Button, Barrichello, Hülkenberg, Buemi, Sutil, Liuzzi, de la Rosa and Chandhok elected to make pit stops during the safety car period.

The significance of these events was that both Vettel and Hamilton were able to make their first stops before their advantage over the rest of the field was nullified by catching the safety car, while Alonso, Massa and Kubica fell down the order.

[25] A line of cars formed behind Kobayashi while Vettel and Hamilton pulled away from the rest of the field, as the front two began trading the fastest lap time of the event.

[25] Alonso made a complaint about Hamilton and asked his team to work with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile race director Charlie Whiting to discuss the issue with the safety car.

[25][28] Vettel extended his lead to 13 seconds when Hamilton lost time due to struggling to pass the lapped cars of Senna and Glock.

The incident caused a puncture on Glock's car that very nearly threw him into a wall and forced him to make a pit stop, though his crew were not ready for him and he lost several seconds as the tyres were brought out.

[25] It was announced two laps later that Button, Barrichello, Hülkenberg, Kubica, Petrov, Liuzzi, Sutil, Buemi and de la Rosa were under investigation for exceeding the speed limit during the safety car period.

Hülkenberg's right rear tyre delaminated on lap 50, causing damage to his car's exhaust system and became the race's final retirement.

Button said that the first lap of the race was "fun", and felt that the McLaren and Red Bull teams were strong but did not want to dismiss Ferrari from the championship battle.

"[38] Button, Barrichello, Kubica, Sutil, Buemi, de la Rosa, Petrov, Liuzzi, and Hülkenberg were all issued with five second-time penalties by the stewards for exceeding the safety car-in lap time.