2010 German Grand Prix - Team Orders Overshadow Ferrari's German Dominance

Ferrari returned to winning ways at yesterday’s German Grand Prix for the first time in four months, but in doing so, have produced the controversy and dismay that Grand Prix racing just doesn’t need.  Spaniard Fernando Alonso was handed the victory on a plate, after team-mate Felipe Massa was told by the Italian team to move aside and give up the lead on lap 48 of the 67 lap race.  It was a reminder of darker times for a sport that has enjoyed a brilliant renaissance in recent times, gripped by the in-house fighting at Red Bull Racing and the form of the British drivers at McLaren.

Ferrari spelt their intent throughout the weekend, and never looked like being beaten once they zipped past the slow-starting Sebastian Vettel off the grid.  For the second successive race, Vettel made a sluggish getaway from pole position and then did the best he could in pinning Alonso into the pit wall.  This opened the door for Massa to cruise into the lead.  On the softer of the two tyre compounds, Felipe looked to have the measure of his team-mate, but once on the harder tyre, Alonso reeled him in.  Through the traffic on lap 21, Alonso attacked into the Turn 6 hairpin, Massa repelled with some feisty defensive driving, which did not impress his team leader, who radioed in by saying – “This is ridiculous.”

Massa pulled away again, but by then, the Scuderia had already made their mind up and his fate was sealed.  On the first anniversary of his near-fatal crash in qualifying for last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix, the hard-working Brazilian was to be robbed of a deserved success, his first since the heartbreak of losing the title in the dying seconds of Brazil 2008.  Alonso closed back into Massa, who then received this message from his race engineer Rob Smedley on Lap 47.

“Okay….Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm you understood this.”

A lap later, Massa obliged on the exit of the hairpin, though no doubt with a face like thunder underneath his crash helmet.  A remorseful and hurtful Smedley felt as bad as his driver did, having to bite his teeth underneath his general feelings for the team, with this coded message.

“Okay….good boy, stick to it now – sorry!”

The team’s stance is that Massa let Alonso through on his own accord, though we do struggle to believe this viewpoint.  So do the stewards, who fined Ferrari $100,000 for breaching sporting regulations.  Team orders are banned, and have been since the fiasco of Austria 2002, when Rubens Barrichello slowed on the start-finish straight to allow Michael Schumacher past to win, with metres of that race remaining.  The World Motorsport Council has referred the incident back to them, so Ferrari could face a backlash further than the initial implications.

Elsewhere, in a dull and stale race, Vettel finished 3^rd, whilst the McLaren’s kept their championship advantages with 4^th and 5^th for Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.  Mark Webber started 4^th, but fell to 6^th at the end, hobbled by high oil temperatures throughout.  The rest of the cast were lapped, with the remaining scraps shared out between the two Renault cars (Robert Kubica in 7^th and Vitaly Petrov in 10^th) and the below-par Mercedes cars (Nico Rosberg languishing in 8^th and another lacklustre performance from the fallen hero, Michael Schumacher who finished a distant 9^th.)  The only other notable event came on lap one, when Toro Rosso took a leaf out of Red Bull’s copybook – when Jaime Alguesuari assaulted Sebastian Buemi at the hairpin, leaving the Spaniard limping back to the pits with no front wing, and Buemi out of the race, his car with no rear wing.

Ferrari is back, and in Hockenheim, sent a strong message to Red Bull Racing and McLaren.  However, their tactics have startled many and left the fans feeling cheated out of a strong wheel-to-wheel battle between two fine drivers.  The fall-out is bound to drag on into the Hungarian Grand Prix at Budapest, which is just one week away.