For the first 28 laps of the race it looked as if Sebastian Vettel would win with ease (streaking away into a 20-second lead as he chased his third consecutive victory at the street circuit) , but a safety car brought his early lead to a halt. Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne inexplicably veered into the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen, causing both cars to suffer punctures. The resulting rubber and debris brought out the safety car, and in the push of a button in race control, Vettel's lead over Grosjean was reduced to nothing. Eventually his chance evaporated completely with a reliability problem. By the end of the 34th lap Vettel's Red Bull was missing. It had coasted to a stop by the side of the track.
Also on the race restart, Alonso moved past Grosjean for second but the young French rookie never gave up and kept the gap to Alonso at less than a second. But just as this fantastic battle came into prospect, he too suddenly slowed (on the 40th lap) and stopped by the side of the track with a alternator failure. Grosjean's retirement saw Lewis Hamilton back in second place. Once again, Hamiton was delayed after another pit-stop issue, (front jack appeared to fail and the pitcrew has an issue attaching the front left wheel). Hamilton had to fend off Kimi Raikkonen in the other Lotus, but he finally got by Hamilton with three laps to go as the McLaren's tyres were finished. Then the focus switched to Maldonado who was closing fast on Hamilton. After Raikkonen's easy pass it seemed inevitable that the Williams would follow, but Hamilton was not going to give up the position easily.
With just one and half laps remaining in the race, Maldonado tried to find a way past Hamilton on the outside of turn 12, but he couldn't make it and when Maldonado found himself on the wrong side of the kerbs on the inside of turn 13, he rejoined the track and broadsided Hamilton in what was an unnecessarily-clumsy collision (which threw Hamilton into the barriers ending his race). 
What caught many by surprise was Mark Webber. Starting his race in P19, Webber managed to leapfrog his way throughout the entire race and end in P4. Had there been only a few more laps to the race, surely Webber would have found his way past Michael Schumacher on onto the podium. With a run like that, it is easy to see why Red Bull's Mark Webber was voted as the 'driver of the day' at the 2012 European Grand Prix.Early Sunday morning, Marussia F1 released that their driver, Timo Glock, would not be participating in the 2012 European.
“Further to the medical problem which prevented Timo Glock from participating in yesterday’s qualifying session for the European Grand Prix in Valencia, the Marussia F1 Team can confirm that Timo is unable to compete in today’s race."This stirred up much discussion about what was happening (and should have happened) in the Marussia F1 team garage. Fans saw this as an opportunity for Marussia's test driver, Maria de Villota, to have a go. But de Villota is a test driver, not a reserve driver and thus, does not hold a super licence and cannot compete. Thought it would have been fantastic to see a woman on track, it was not the case and Marussia was one driver down during the 2012 European Grand Prix.
 Fernando Alonso |  Winner |
 Kimi Räikkönen |  Second |
 Michael Schumacher |  Third |
 Mark Webber | P4  Fan's Choice |
 Nico Hülkenberg | P5 |
| Nico Rosberg | P6  |
| Paul di Resta | P7 |
 Jenson Button | P8 |
 Sergio Pérez | P9 |
 Bruno Senna | P10 |
 Daniel Ricciardo | P11 |
| Pastor Maldonado | P12 |
 Vitaly Petrov | P13 |
| Heikki Kovalainen | P14 |
 Charles Pic | P15 |
| Felipe Massa | P16 |
 Pedro de la Rosa | P17 |
| Narain Karthikeyan | P18 |
| Lewis Hamilton |  Retired (collision) |
| Romain Grosjean |  Retired (alternator) |
| Sebastian Vettel | Retired (alternator) |
| Kamui Kobayashi | Retired (collision) |
| Jean-Éric Vergne | Retired (collision) |
| Timo Glock | DNS (illness) |
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