Ferrari fiasco

It was good to see the two Ferrari’s back on form again last weekend as it will make the championship a little more exciting to be between three teams rather than two. It was surprising to see Massa take the lead into the first corner and stay there for most of the race. It was even more surprising to hear Rob Smedley congratulating Philippe on lap 28 having held off Alonso’s challenge and was now pulling away with fastest lap after fastest lap and a gap of around 3.5 seconds, saying, “keep going, we can win this now”. I for one was not expecting to hear anything like this and I guess that the commentators weren’t either as on lap 20 Mark Brundle had suggested that Massa would be given a message that Alonso was faster than him so he would pull over. This seemed to spur Alonso on as he took the fastest lap on lap 29 and seemed to reduce the gap when Massa was caught in traffic.

When Massa got the message from Rob Smedley on lap 47 and lap 48 to say that Alonso was faster than him my heart sank because I knew that he would have to give up the fight and Alonso would be allowed through for the good of the team. I wasn’t sure how they would do this without making it look like team orders which are illegal but I knew that the race was over. I couldn’t believe it when Massa just pulled over to let him through, it was far too obvious. As was the pathetic cover up by the Ferrari team trying to make everyone believe that there were no team orders; how ridiculous they made themselves look. I don’t get it; they employ such clever people on huge salaries and yet make such basic idiotic errors like this. It felt to me like they were deliberately sticking two fingers up at the FIA and the rule book thinking that they could say and do anything they like to avoid prosecution.

Once the press made a big thing out of it and had a go at them after the race the FIA had no choice but to mount an investigation but why hadn’t they done this at the time, were they hoping that it would go away and nobody would question it? Later on they fined Ferrari $100,000 for breaking the rules; in particular a rule that was made in 2002 when Ferrari again gave an order to Baracelo to let Schumacher past on the last lap for the good of the team. In fact in 2002 even though there was no rule disallowing teams to give orders that effect the outcome of the race, Ferrari was fined $1000,000 for bringing the race into disrepute. Bizarre, ten times more than the fine this time when there is a rule. The whole thing stinks but now Ferrari will have to present their case to the FIA world motor sport council.

I would exclude Massa and Alonso from having any points from the German GP and if they continue with their pathetic lies trying to wriggle their way out I would exclude them from the rest of the year. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar very harsh penalties from the world motor sport council that most people will feel is a little too strong, especially for Massa who had no choice. It’s a sad day for formula 1 but have you noticed how Alonso always seems to be in the middle of all the major troubles without taking any blame?
Wish me luck; I start my new job today in Oxford.