Ferrari fined, World Motor Sport Council to examine Alonso’s pass on Massa

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Ferrari have been fined $100,000 for breaking the Sporting Regulations during the German Grand Prix.

The stewards of the race have also referred the matter to the World Motor Sports Council. The result of the race stands for the time being.

Fernando Alonso passed Felipe Massa to win the German Grand Prix after the team had been heard instructing Massa that he was slower than his team mate.

Massa admitted after the race he let Alonso past but said he did so of his own choosing.

The stewards found Ferrari guilty of breaking article 39.1 of the Sporting Regulations which forbid team orders that influence the outcome of the race.

They additionally adjudged it to be a transgression of article 151c of the International Sporting Code, relating to bringing the sport into disrepute, the same section that McLaren were famously found in violation of in 2007.

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    362 comments on “Ferrari fined, World Motor Sport Council to examine Alonso’s pass on Massa”

    1. Will be interesting to see how this goes at WMC. McLaren certainly never enjoyed the experience, but then that was under different leadership…

      1. WMC need to be careful about punishing Alonso

        He had nothing to do with it. Fine Massa and Ferrari

        1. Fine Ferrari only. Only the team is responsible for T.O. If you blame Massa, that means he let Alonso pass of his own will, therefore no T.O.

          1. I agree. The team shouldn’t get any WCC points for this race (but the drivers shouldn’t be penalised).

            1. Jhonnie Siggie
              25th July 2010, 17:37

              Alonso was a petulant child and instigated the decision to let him pass. How can you honestly say he should keep his points?

            2. @Jhonnie Siggie – that’s not against the rules though.

            3. @ Jhonnie nothing technically wrong with that. just unsportsmanlike.

          2. They all need a good fine because they all stood in front of the world and lied about it. Hamilton was drawn over hot coals for lying. This lot should walk the same path.

            1. How about fine them and swap the drivers’ positions around. That removes the incentive for anyone else to do it.

            2. We want turbos
              26th July 2010, 0:15

              Unfair to punish Massa but Alonso contributed to bringing the sport into disrepute hence guilt! Massa was heavily leaned on and would probably be out on his backside for next season unless he complied!!!

        2. Fine Massa? Are you crazy? I don’t think he had much say in the issue even though he said it was ‘his decision’. Do you think he wanted to let alonso through? And if he had said no to the team, what might the repercussions within the team be? If anything, his decision to let Alonso through was done under duress.

          1. Massa and Smedly are the only ones to blame… whre did that happen in McLaren when they told him to “save fuel”?!?!?

            So the only two to blame are Massa and Smadley, the first should let Alonso pass more “life like”, while Smadly puprposly told the whole world they gave a TO.

            In my eyes they should both be sacked the first second the race finished

            1. Massa simply followed orders, as he should have done. Alonso has nothing to do with it either. He was the faster driver in the race, as he was all weekend. The team did what made sense. If they had let the drivers race, Alonso would have attempted overtakes on Massa, and although he would have probably passed him at some point, it would have been a very risky proposition, with lots of traffic in some parts of the track and also given that Massa and Alonso have never been on the best of terms. Ferrari simply chose to preempt a potential RBR-like disaster. It was the right call. Had they instructed Alonso to hold position, that would have been a team order as well.

            2. I think Massa made deliberately made it look obvious just so that people would know that he let Alonso pass. And by your nonsensical logic, all the other bosses who actually made the decision to let Alonso through are faultless and the 2 fellows who received those orders from their bosses and were probably the most reluctant to carry out the move are to blame? I fail to see where you get your logic from.

            3. In other words you’re saying it would have been just fine if the team had done a better job of flouting the regulations?

              The rules were changed to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening. Both Ferrari’s should have been disqualified from the race, and Ferrari’s fine should be much, much heavier (whatever your views on gambling, consider the implications on that front, no doubt there were many big winners and losers as a result of this engineered result).

            4. @rok,

              I presume you comment was made simply to get an argument out of people as I can’t believe anyone would be thick enough to actually believe Massa and Smedley are to blame for this. They were given orders from Ferrari team management who would have been ordered to do so by Alonsos spanish mafia backup. Alonso was pretty much demanding that massa be ordered to let him past earlier in the race! Funny how alonso is always caught up in these things yet denies any involvement……..

            5. Lol, you’re joking right ? You’re fine with cheating as long as it’s made less obvious.

              No motor racing fan can stand up for what Ferrari did today.

            6. leave massa out of this, or else you might as well say barrichello was at fault with schumacher.

              ferrari should have no points for this race and alonso and massa should each be left alone. unless alonso was found to have asked to be let past massa and in this case alonso should be stripped of the victory and disqualified from the event.

            7. did yoiu expected that massa pretended he could stop alonso? THATS’S ridiculus, it should be even more clear, like barrichello did it, he couldn’t get out of the car and tell everybody ferrari told him to do it, so he let alonso pass in a way that he didn’t have to explain anything to anyone, it is there to be seen

            8. We want turbos
              26th July 2010, 0:42

              Ferrari fanboy or what!!! The team forced them to break the rules!!!

        3. Fine Massa!??!?! He’s the least guilty in all of this. If anything he’s the VICTIM

          Alonso was calling for the team order and Ferrari gave the order. They should both be punished. If they don’t punish Alonso they effectively say that team orders are ok (since then Alonso would be able to keep his spoils of the transgression)

          1. The best thing is to fine Ferrari. Alonso didn’t say a thing to the team about Massa, so why should he be fined.

          2. I agree because I think Massa was more or less cajoled or bullied – well before the race – into accepting this scenario. Smedley’s ‘did you get the message’ was obviously ‘activating’ something discussed earlier (that Alonso knew well about, for certain). I just think he, Massa, expected this team order to cede place to occur later in the season. Alonso was frustrated he couldn’t pass, called it ‘ridiculous’ on the radio, which was ‘code’ for Ferrari to help him out by getting Massa to move over. That’s really what happened.

            But. But Massa gave way. He’s cupable of breaching the regulation. And again Alonso can feasibly plead innocence with no proof against him. That’s how this guy works.

            1. Exactly. It did definitely seem that there was an “understanding” already in place within the team. Very disappointing.

          3. “Alonso was calling for the team order and Ferrari gave the order”

            Take care Patrickl, in two days you will think that was fact.

            1. Er IDR that IS a fact, he was crying to the team from early on in the race, hombre.

            2. @IDR,

              Did you actually listen to the race commentry and radio transmissions? Alonso was all but ordering the team to give the order. With the things I have heard going on internally at Ferrari regarding Alonso I am not at all surprised that this has happened.

        4. Fine Massa?

          Are you Alonso in disguise of “Giuseppe”?

          1. What is Alonso supposed to do when the teammate suddenly slows down infront of him? Common sense people. FIne Massa and Ferrari

            1. Aloso acts like a spoilt brat and is obsessed with Hamilton. He cries for everything and is acting worse than how Schumi was at his time with Ferrari.

            2. If your team mate suddenly slows, then you overtake.. not ask him to move over… or make the team make him move over.

              If you cant overtake then either you are slower than your team mate or you should drive a tractor.

            3. yeah, cause alonso was sooo inocent and really believed massa was having trouble, all of them should be fined

        5. Yeah he did, since he was complaining to his team. Both Felipe and Alonso should loose their points, its race fixing and the FIA needs to make it clear to the teams and their drivers. If a team lets a driver out of the pit in front of a car it’s not the drivers fault but he gets the drive through. Ferrari and both drivers should be penalised to make it clear as unacceptable

        6. Ferrari should not be punished at all. If they had continued to tell Alonso to hold position, and not risk an overtake on Massa, that would have been a team order as well. So no matter what a team does, it can be perceived as a team order.

          McLaren did the same a couple of races ago, telling Button not to attempt an overtake on Hamilton. That’s a team order too.

          1. Well, the rules are screwed up. Some team orders are more significant than others, likewise, some are more acceptable and reasonable than others. I think there should be a line drawn at some point. Like for instance, Asking a driver to lower his revs and not push so hard to save the engine is an order, but no one would bat an eyebrow.

            1. I’d be fine with team orders if they weren’t against the rules. Team orders have existed since the start of Grand Prix racing, but they were made illegal in F1 in 2002.

              Team orders that influence the finishing order of their drivers are either illegal or they are not. If they are illegal then the drivers’ positions need to be swapped around to undo the ‘manipulation’, and a monetary or points fine levelled at the team (I can see a constructors points deduction as a likely outcome). If they are not illegal then take that rule out of the rule book. Simple.

          2. “So no matter what a team does, it can be perceived as a team order.”

            They didn’t have to make any team orders at all, just let them compete.

          3. Did they tell alonso to hold position ? I don’t remember that. The rule is about team orders that change the outcome of the race. Alonso probably wouldn’t have passed Massa on the track, so by telling him to back off, they’re not changing the result.

            I can’t believe anyone can stand up for what Ferrari did today

          4. @F1Fan

            I think you are confusing two different type of order. One order is to remind your drivers that they are members of the same team and not to take each other out when good points are on the table and the outcome of not giving the order is an unknown (ie no one can tell if the driver told to back off would ever have overtaken the team mate if left alone), the other is directly fixing the outcome of the race knowing exactly what the outcome will be. Red bull effectively gave a team order at silverstone by taking a part off webber to make vettels car better, however again the result of this would have again been an unknown and therefore just gave them a bad image rather than one of cheating. Maclaren from what I remember told button to back off and I am pretty sure that Hamiltons name was not mentioned or even inferred. He could have been told to back off for many reasons (fuel saving, break temp etc) just like Webber was told to back off Button today. Ferrari on the other hand pretty much explicitly told one driver to move out of the way to allow another past (something I think Massa and Smedley purposefully made more obvious than they needed to) and rather stupidly broke a rule that was brought in because of their own behavior 8 years ago! I hope they throw the book at Ferrari for this although I am not sure either of the drivers should be punished as although I truly believe Alonso called for the order to be given and that he would clearly have discussed his priority with the team, it, just like the Singapore incident would be almost impossible to prove so they should both be given the benefit of doubt and it should be assumed that the team gave the order alone.

        7. I can see why someone would say fine Massa as he did choose to back off. I can’t be a hypocrite after I said Nelson Piquet Jnr had a choice (very different circumstances though). However, he was the victim and it would be a bit daft.

        8. …eh? Alonso is a great driver and is no doubt at the top of the F1 driver talent table(i do think Ham has most natural talent but weak in strat area).However today alonso did his usual moan and Ferrari know they can influence the fia and hence broke the rule knowing a light punishment would apply.Any other team would have been landed in the crap heap and handed bans etc.
          Alonso is not a man worthy of F1 and time and time again has done what ever he can to win and has lost many fans in the process..including me!Ferrari are corrupt like they have always been and throw money at the law book to by-pass it.
          Let vettel,hamilton,weber,massa and button all rain on the dirty little dishonest,winging plank..go on fernado win on your own merit,for once.
          Thanks for listening

        9. I desagree! Massa, ALonso and Ferrari already had to be punisch in the WMC. BTW, both Ferrari have to receive a black flag during the Race.

          []´s

          Fleetmaster – B R A Z I L –
          twitter.com/fleetmaster

        10. Alonso was “criying” all the race asking for the team order. He must be punishied too. Like a Ferrari fan im totally disgusted.

        11. they should take away all points from Massa & Ferrari and ban Massa for the next 2 races….

        12. I think you are very nieve if you think that Alonso had nothing to do with this. He either gets his way or he throws his dummy away. Massa did what he was told and moved over to let Alonso pass, end of story.

      2. haha ferrari technicals are very bad actors comparade to mclaren i ensure you that even on this year mclaren has their hands very dirty

        1. @MiguelF!

          If you are going to cast allegations please have the decency to at least explain what it is that you think that Maclaren have done?

    2. WHO CARES ABOUT FINES?!

      1. This is a valid statement, for a small fine like $100,000 is a dip in the ocean for a team like Ferrari. They will probably make that back in the TV revunue from the podium celebrations alone.

        If teams are to be punished, the punishments have to be ones that are actually deterimental to the team. With (relatively speaking) small fines, you might actually get teams breaking the rule because they know they can afford the fine that comes with it

        1. They probably damaged their brand value by a lot more today than this fine. But it seems the $100.000 fine is the biggest one the race stewards can award.

          I think this will prove to have been a breakthrough ruling. The Stewards now fully well, that team orders, while outlawed, are an integral part of F1 and its very hard to prove (that might be the reason for including the “bringing the sport in disrepute” as it is almost failsafe against appeal to safeguard the penalty given), but decided to act anyhow.

          Now the World Council / Todt will have to decide weather to enforce the rule and punish Ferrari or dump it/change it to clearly define what is/is not allowed and be actually enforcable.

      2. If Alonso wins the championship, I’m sure Ferrari will think it was worth every penny.

        1. If Alonso wins the championship I hereby swear I’ll never watch another race.

          (To be honest, I reckon I’m on pretty safe ground with that however.)

          1. I made that same solemn oath after Spa 2008… but sadly, I could not stay away… so now, my eternal soul is bound for hellfire ;-)

            as much as I hate this, the fact is F1 will suck me back in… unless of course they switch to Tesla or Prius engines

            1. Does not really matter who screws the rules, being it Ferrari or the FIA. Still it is a disgrace.
              Actually Massa deserves an applause for keeping up the face after the race and the Stewards really impressed by actually handing out a penalty and calling for the World Council to rule on this.

        2. He’d probably be willing to pay himself. The Team Prize money would easily cover it.

    3. FIA has here a unique opportunity to set things straight & clear.

      1. yes they do, lets hope it happens

        1. Are you forgetting who heads the FIA? Jean Team-Rules Todt.

          1. He is also the father of Massa´s manager, should be doubly interesting.

          2. When Todt did it, there wasn’t a rule against team orders.

            1. In theory, I like that. I’m sure they will find a way however.

            2. So in other words youre saying the ferrari is the only one doing it…

              So in that case, they should scrap the rule because everyone is doing it, the only difference is that Massa and hes racing engeneer cant get over that Alonso is just simply way faster… thats the truth

            3. They shouldn’t allow team orders. This is competition and the drivers must be allowed to compete.

          3. The FIA under Jean Todt’s leadership has so far been swift and very impartial… I’d even go as far as to say Ferrari have gotten a harder time than most of the front running teams so far (if simply by bad luck).

            I’m curious to see how it pans out, but let’s not start blaming a rather well functioning FIA before the issue has even been dealt with by the WMSC.

            I mainly feel sorry for Massa at this point.

            1. I think Ferrari may have seriously miscalculated if they think they’ll get off with a slap on the wrist from the WMSC…I think the Jean Todt camp will be keen to show that they do not favour the red team!!

    4. Wow, never expect Ferrari would be punished given their position in the F1 community lol

      1. Are you saying their above the law?

    5. Speed of light Keith. What else could they do? The rule is a poor one in a team event and has been exploited too many times. Time to let it go.

      1. And what good did this for the team exactly? Nothing. Only one to benefit is alonso. Ferrari got exactly the same amount of points they would’ve gotten otherwise.

        1. Of course Ferrari benefit more this way — Alonso had more points in the championship before this result, and now he is closer to the championship leaders. So Ferrari has Alonso closer to leading the championship than if Massa would be if he had won.

          Not that I agree with what Ferrari did, I’m disgusted.

      2. But how many people want to see manipulated races? It’s one thing a team telling its drivers to hold station near the end of a race, quite another for it to ask a driver to sacrifice his win for his teammate – the latter should only be allowed once a driver has publicly announced his title bid is over.

        We are only halfway through the season, and Massa was less than one race win from the top of the table – yet Ferrari effectively told him his season is over.

        The rule needs tweaking, but I’d hate to see it disappear entirely.

        1. That’s the thing though. How on earth do you fully enforce the ‘No team orders’ rule? By getting rid of team radios e.t.c? Which obviously you can’t do. If it is true all teams do it (or have done it) then how do they get away with it and how do you actually stop them? How do you prevent future offences? I think it’s always going to be a dubious rule but I wouldn’t want team orders to be allowed for various reasons.
          Maybe it would deter teams from doing them if there were massive repercussions i.e. disqualification although I doubt this would even stop them. They’d probably still find some way and risk it.

          1. Massa let Raikkonen win in Brazil because he’d conceded his own title hopes were dashed, I can’t see a problem with that. The problem with Germany is that Massa was still in the title hunt – and clearly quick enough to gain the victory (though I’d have relished the fight!). You’re right though, it’s a really tricky one to enforce.

            But maybe they could get rid of radios? Or, for safety’s sake, make it driver-to-team and FIA-to-driver only? It would certainly make team orders all but impossible.

            1. If I was going to give team orders I’d use a code word on the pit board. Nobody really looks at the pit board other than the driver, and it could be something as simple as displaying the gap to the driver behind in a different colour. How would you ever prove that?

          2. It’s easy to enforce such a rule — when a driver is mathematically incapable of winning the championship, the team can give him orders to change positions.

            Nelly you raise an interesting point about radios. I have long wondered if F1 would be more entertaining if there were no radio communication between the pit and the driver, except when the driver is in the pit lane. This would mean all on-track decisions are down to the drivers. I was mighty impressed earlier in the season when Button made his own tyre calls above the team strategy and it paid off.

            1. Well the thing with that rule would be that some would be left saying ‘Well… would Mr Blah really have won the championship if it wasn’t for Mr blah letting him passed?’ Then we’d probably be back to square one with team orders and say they should be banned completely.

              You have a point about the radios I just somehow don’t know if it would work and I doubt the teams would be pleased. I can’t imagine them being gotten rid of anyway. They live without in MotoGP though so who knows?

      3. I doubt the FIA will drop it. Rather give Ferrari a suspended ban or something next to another fine.
        AND define what team orders are allowed in what circumstances and draw a clear line as to what is to be deemed illegal.

      4. @rampante

        The problem is that it is not seen as a strictly team event by the fans (you know the ones that mean F1 can exist in it’s highly commercial form) Some of those fans bet on race results (in which case Ferrari could be accused of race fixing in the courts) and other fans pay a lot of money to go around the world to watch racing (yes that is two drivers racing each other for position rather than letting people past on team orders), many others watch on TV for the same reason which enables F1 and the teams to make a lot of money from advertising. Red bull were correctly criticised by the fans for their treatment of webber for this reason (even though it is not against the rules) but Ferrari have clearly and blatantly broke a rule that was brought in because of the uproar the last time they did it! I am not sure if they thought that they could get away with it due to their insider relationship with the FIA in the past, however what they seem to forget is that their relationship is no longer strong enough for them to get away with cheating anymore. I feel very sorry for Massa as he clearly was not happy at being asked to do that. Alonso has not improved his already poor image in this.

    6. MacademiaNut
      25th July 2010, 17:23

      Exactly, 100K is chump change for Ferrari. Why even bother with fine?

      1. Joe Saward speculated it was the highest amount Stewards can set as a penalty, so that they did that and referred it to the WMSC.

    7. So what kind of punishments can this Motorsport Council give?
      I find it interesting that it was not for 31.9 Team Orders but 151? Bringing Sport into Disrespute(Autosport)

      1. Apparently it was both.

      2. WMSC can give any punishment they like. They nearly booted out McLaren in 2007 and considered it with Renault last year.

      3. The Stewards used both, so even if the FIA decide not to push on the team order thing (hard to prove) the disrepute rule is so hard to appeal to, the fine will probalbly stand.

    8. So, a win costs $100,000. Not even one hundred thousand euros.

      1. They would have won the race either way…

      2. The FIA can’t even afford to buy a Ferrari with that fine. What’s the prize money for a win?

    9. $100k is nothing to Ferrari, I’m surprised Red Bull are not causing more fuss, after all they lost alot of points by allowing their drivers to race, something which may have happened today going by Alonso’s temper in this past few races.

      1. That’s about as much as they sell a new road car for. Someone at the FIA just got themselves a free Ferrari. lol

      2. Don’t you think Red Bull would be the last to make a point of it?

        After all this was the scenario the team planned for Turkey when both their drivers were equal on points!

    10. do we talk about it only costing $100k for Alonso to win a race now???

      seriously, hope something a bit more serious happens, I was looking forward to the battle that we all knew would have happened

      1. “do we talk about it only costing $100k for Alonso to win a race now???”

        I bet you the fine has already been paid .. haha

        1. Domenicali probably delivered the cheque with a big grin.

      2. yes, and buying a polepostion (Canada 2010) costs less ;)

    11. This never would have happened if there wasn’t outrage from the fans an media.

      1. Because ultimately that’s where the sport’s money comes from. And people want to see a sport. And not a team sport like cycling with a one-man ‘B-team’ helping the ‘team leader.’ And the drivers don’t want the latter either. Formula 1’s emotion frequently comes from a battle between drivers from the same top teams. If you introduce explicit team orders, that will be all but totally lost in most cases, maybe just McLaren risking a two lead driver setup for some of the season. The rest will back one driver all season.

      2. You’re right, there wasn’t any word from the stewards until the media went for Alonso’s jugular at the press conference.

      3. yer, and like Brundle said would anyone have cared if it’d been for 4th/5h? The outrage was disproportionate as well. Team orders are part of the game just Ferrari were daft enough to make theirs very public

        1. Nothing wrong with Ferrari as there are TWO championships that they are after. I think they are “honest” to let the world see that they are serious about that. Ferrari just want to maximize their chances for both championships. F1 is both an individual and team sport.

          1. Aside from the fact they would have scored the same team points either way round, how does the risk of demotivating Massa help Ferrari win the constructors championship? The assist for Alonso only makes sense from an ‘individual sport’ point of view – and, more cynically, in terms of Ferrari’s current major sponsors. Individual and corporate sport, perhaps?

    12. You see Keith this a chance to make alot of money here. Instead of making F1fanatic t-shirts, make f1 fanatic torches, pitchforks and rocks with your logo on the side.

      You would make a killing with all the british fans foaming out of the mouth at the moment lol…

      1. “make f1 fanatic torches, pitchforks and rocks with your logo on the side.
        You would make a killing with all the british fans foaming out of the mouth at the moment lol…”

        And would probably be arrested.. lol, but im sure he would make enough to pay the bail

      2. Surely F1Fanatic flannels would be more appropriate? But you’re ignoring all the Brazilian fans…

        1. Maybe a “I let him past for the team and all I got was this T-shirt” T-shirt for Massa fans?

          1. that’s a good idea bob

          2. That would be an instant hit!

    13. That´s exactly my feelings.

      1. sorry, I was trying to reply to Victor´s post: WHO CARES ABOUT FINES?!

    14. Surprise, surprise; Ferrari are punished in the one way that doesn’t hurt them. So now it appears that it costs $100,000 per face to use team orders – let’s hope Red Bull and McLaren are doing their maths and we will see how many Ferrari supporters are ok when it hurts their team.

      1. I’ve thought about it and the result benefits Mclaren as it stands, they don’t lose as much to a Vettel in 3rd as they would with a Vettel in 1st.

      2. The bringing spot into disrepute is ultimately what got McLaren that ridiculously hight 200 million fine and exclusion from WCC for 2007, isn’t it?

        Maybe not so cheap when all is said and done then.

        1. McLaren were indeed punished to a level it would be felt. Compare that with Renault over Singapore 2008 who let off lightly to ensure they didn’t disappear from the sport. I don’t think breaching team orders is anywhere near on that level – McLaren were rightly whacked for cheating and the Renault team members responsible should have maybe have seen criminal prosecution for inciting a potentially lethal accident – but neither do I think a fine is appropriate. I’d prefer to see FIA swap round the points (positions) for Alonso and Massa and dock these points from Ferrari’s WCC score (not the drivers).

    15. Best news of the day.

    16. I may have got things wrong here or do most of you now want the death penalty brought back in Europe? Ferrari won the race and were 2nd. Any manipulation was wrong but within the team with no other consequences. All team bosses do not want the outcome RBR had and that wil not happen again. A fine was all the rules allow.

      1. You are right on the money here. But it’s understandable why so many are angered.

        By the way, the death penalty should come back.

      2. I want to see them race each other, like the redbull boys and the mclaren boys. That’s why we all watch it, for the racing. Felipe and Alonso should loose their points as a clear message. If a jockey holds back his horse he is disqualified, its race fixing.

        1. There is a regulation. It was clearly breached – thus the ruling against the team.

          $100K is a joke. Ferrari probably spent that on their corporate entertainment this weekend.

          The result effects the championship results, thus the punishment should reflect that.

          As Ferrari were guilty as a team of manipulating the result, both cars (thus the team) should have been castigated by ejection from the result. Then the team should have been fined for not honouring the sporting regs they obviously felt they were above.

          The punishment should leave no wriggle room. The wrong message has just been sent out down the paddock – you can fudge the result, but do it quietly or you can expect to pay for the result you want.

          As a fan, I want to see racing. Red Bull and McLaren drivers have gone wheel to wheel this season and provided amazing entertainment for us all. But Ferrari decided today that they would decide who would win the Grand Prix. I find that unacceptable as a fan. I am surprised you do not.

          Hope the WMSC revise the result, but suspect they won’t. The prancing horse has bolted and a decision should have been forthcoming today.

          1. Dead right salty. This season has been great precisely because of incidents like the Red Bull and McLaren drivers battling between themselves. Ferrari propel themselves and their drivers into this action – and promptly deprive spectators of seeing Alonso have to fight his way past Massa.

            FIA and the teams can do what they like, it’s their sport, but a warning: if the Ferrari path is taken, the revival in interest in Formula 1 will plummet.

          2. theRoswellite
            25th July 2010, 19:12

            Best post in ages!

            1. theRoswellite
              25th July 2010, 19:42

              ….by Salty that is.

              Also, if these results stand, Alonso and Ferrari had better hope that if they win the driver’s championship it is by more than 8 points…the difference between first and second.

              Otherwise we have the false or “manipulated” champion reigning (raining?) for a year.

            2. It’s OK theRoswellite, I’m sure Salty realized that!

      3. That was race fixing. That is against the rules in F1 as well as in boxing, horse racing etc and is illegal to boot. What about all those that had a bet on Massa at 16:1? Will the authorities in Germany investigate the race fixing? I hope so.

        And, it ruined the spectacle, bye bye F1 I’ll stick to MotoGP, roll on 10:00 tonight.

      4. To me it showed that Massa and Alonso are just about equal in ability in the same car. Alonso tried unsuccessfully to pass Massa through the race, and since Ferrari have absolutely no imagination, they allowed the pass in front of a worldwide audience.
        So, if the team think that these two drivers are unable to battle it out on the circuit without hitting each other, why are they in Ferraris in the first place? (Ferrari supposedly only taking the best drivers they can find)
        If Ferrari management is only going to races with the thought of making Alonso WDC, why haven’t they told Massa yet? (I think if he knew he was No 2 he would have allowed Alonso to take the lead in the first couple of laps).
        This also shows the lie that Ferrari treat both their drivers equally, they definitely have the Number One, and the the one who isn’t!

    17. Guys, too early to assume that $100k is the extent of it, perhaps that is the maximum the race stewards are allowed to fine up to, the heavy guns can come out at the WMC.

      Interesting too that it was under both 39.1 and 151c – nice to see them using 151c, it basically backs up the fans opinion – if we are all screaming about it then the sport has pretty much been brought into disrepute, it’ll be all over the morning papers…

      1. So true, i should be in bed since its middle of the morning here in Australia but im so annoyed I cant sleep. It spoiled the race. Disrepute, fine the team and take the drivers points. Make it clear to everyone

      2. The 151c also is a good safeguard for keeping up at least the fine, in case the WMC fails to hand out a more severe penalty for 39.1 or Ferrari appeals succesfully for lack of evidence (as 151c is easy to prove and almost impossible to appeal).

        It will be a real test for the WMC procedures and for how Todt will handle this one.

    18. $100,000 is a tad short of $100,000,000 though isn’t it. An utter disgrace. Ferrari should be disqualified not fined.

      1. Bernard – the 100M was levied by the WMC, not by the race stewards – it’s really too early to assume this will be the end of the matter.

        1. Your right Elly, I should contain my frustration for the time being. While the WMC are at it though they should also consider installing an official in the team to oversee parity the remainder of the season, maybe the top 4 teams should all get one. :)

    19. Jean Todt’s in an uneviable position now as the Ferrari team boss who led to the rule being introduced in the first place. Think the most realistic punishment has to be taking their constructor points away for that race and settle at that and maybe an increased fine.

    20. Good work on covering this story Keith.
      You are giving us front row seats to what appears to be a massive storm of controversy…and it’s only just started raining.

    21. “Fernando Alonso passed Felipe Massa to win the German Grand Prix after the team had been heard instructing Massa that he was slower than his team mate.

      Massa admitted after the race he let Alonso past but said he did so of his own choosing”

      This, looking at pure facts, is what happened. But it was obvious what the intentions were and I sure hope the WMC use their common sense here and not textbooks.

    22. ferrari fined for the team orders. ok! mclaren not fined for the same reason in turkey! well done FIA

      1. Oh please.

        Yes, I distinctly remember Hamilton moving over to let Button pass after a team order, and then Button moving aside on the next straight after receiving his.

        Exactly the same.

        1. Roger Carballo AKA Archtrion
          25th July 2010, 17:41

          Letting a driver pass alters the result just the same as impeding another to overtake.

          Unless you are a fanboy and can’t understand something as simple as that

          1. Fair enough. But Ferrari don’t make it easy on themselves:

            “We need more fuel saving. Fuel is critical. Save tyres in turn eight.”

            is not the same as:

            “Alonso is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?”…”Good lad. Just stick with it now, sorry.”

            And I’m no fanboy thank you very much.

            1. Roger Carballo AKA Archtrion
              25th July 2010, 17:56

              ok, you’re not a fanboy….

              but, you are missing a point here, the save fuel order came after the wheel to wheel battle that almost ends with the two drivers in the park. Something that was really near to happen today, two times, turn 6 and next turn 7 where Felipe simply throwed Alonso off the track, although he has the interior for the next left turn 8.

              Or maybe, I’m a fanboy and I saw a different race

            2. So… the point is? Alonso should have backed off to preserve a Ferrari 1-2, right? Wrong of course. Massa was expected to let Alonso past.

              Fact is Alonso, like Vettel, couldn’t get past his team mate. Hamilton, though, retook Button with some impressive driving where both were competing. Point made.

          2. Except both Mclarens were actually short on fuel in Turkey, as was evidenced by both of them having fumes in their tanks after the race.

        2. lol – i love sarcasm – it really cheers me up!

      2. IIRC Mclaren’s team orders gave us some excellent racing between team mates. Ferrari’s team orders stopped us seeing a race

      3. And RBR not fined in Turkey for it as they shot themselves in the foot.

        Hamilton/Button having a scrap in Turkey does not really fit in there.

      4. If you ware watching the Turkey race carefully, the situations you could see was, how the racing between team mates should looks like. RedBulls and Mclarens ware RACING between mates. Bulls ware not so good, and has crashed, but what Mclarens has shown, was good lesson how it should be.

    23. Ferrari taking points off Vettel isn’t the worst thing that us British supposedly ‘biased’ fans could have wished for.

      Personally, I’m sad for Massa. His passion and commitment to Ferrari is clear (remember Interlagos 2008), and so it’s a shame that Ferrari would think that he’s out of the title race (and expendable) halfway through the season, even though he was only one win behind his team mate.

      1. “Personally, I’m sad for Massa.”

        Me too. It took Webber some time to get back on form after his injury, so I hope this is just the beginning for Massa and he will come back with avengence for the remainder of the season. If he does, it would be foolish of Ferrari to repeat this mistake. The outcry over this incident could be a blessing in disguise for Massa.

        Also, on a another note, I don’t understand the “British bias” sentiments from some posters either.

        1. If anything, it should be the Brazilians who should be crying foul, they saw it happen to Rubens and now they see it happening to Felipe as well…

          1. They are… though a lot of the blame will attach to Felipe for ceding. It’s a difficult one. Where’s the dividing line between loyalty and subservience? I think Felipe crossed it, but maybe he’ll only realize that with hindsight. I don’t think it was accidental Ferrari got Smedley to do the dirty job of asking him to pull over. Maybe Massa was already bumped into 2nd driver status when he passively accepted Alonso jumping him at the pits in China. But today confirmed it and I’m not sure what the end result will be.

            One other point: if Ferrari (and Alonso) have demoralized Massa over this and he seriously loses his motivation on track, they could regret the points he could have taken off Alonso’s rivals. All depends on Massa’s reaction. He’s proud, more than today’s incident showed. He could decide to prove his point now in a variety of ways, not all of them good for Alonso…

    24. Hang on, so the FIA agree that the race was manipulated, team orders were given and rules were broken. Yet the punishment is $100,000? No disqualification or grid drop from the next race?

      They may as well make team orders legal now, im pretty sure every team up and down the paddock would take $100,000 every race if it meant they got the result they wanted.

      Its like a theif stealing $1 million worth of goods, being caught and as a punishment having to pay a $100,000 penalty. Where is the logic or sense in any of this?

      1. Agree. There needs to be a stronger response or we WILL see more of this in the future.

        Only race dis-qualification for the team makes sense. The team tried to falsify and engineer the result of the German Grand Prix. Team, and both drivers, need to be scrubbed from the results.

        This will send out the clear and unclouded message to the whole grid – LET THE DRIVERS RACE.

        Forget Ferrari/McLaren/RB or any other allegiances, is there really any F1 fan out there that doesn’t want this?

    25. According to Lee McKenzie the next scheduled meeting of the WMSC isn’t until September. I wonder if they’ll call an extraordinary meeting to sort it out before then? After all, we could see further repeats of the same tactics in the meantime.

      1. I’d hope that they would, and hold it over the Aug season break so that we’d have this sorted out before too many more races pass. The summer of waiting for the McLaren decision at the WMC was horrendous not knowing what was going to happen.

      2. My guess is that a delay would be helpful to the WMSC, because they’d be able to see how the championship is shaping up by that point.

        IMHO(maybe this is a tad cynical), at the end of the day, it would have been bad for the spectacle of F1 for Ferrari to lose their points from this race, thereby hindering the three-way fight for the constructors championship. I think the FIA would have been much tougher on Ferrari had they been leading the championship, however they are in third place with good prospects.

        The FIA and anyone else with a vested interest in the sport would like to see a nice close fight as we get towards the end of the championship. I think the penalties imposed by the WMSC will take this into consideration, when the time comes.

        In the meantime, I think other teams would be cautious about repercussions because the WMSC meeting is still pending and no-one knows what the outcome will be.

    26. Roger Carballo AKA Archtrion
      25th July 2010, 17:39

      What a fantastic joke…. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.
      1. You only breach the rules if you are a no british team, competing against a brit one, and find enough support from media and fanboys.
      2. Since I started watching Formula 1, beginnings of golden 80s, I’ve never seen a more justified team tactics than this one. Call it team orders or whatever you like it. Ferrari jumped into the only real chance to win the only championship that matters, WDC. Something that has been said here by all of you tons of times.
      3. All this stuff reveals one single truth. Todt was the wrong president to choose. The sport would have been better in the hands of a new board, free of the ties of the past.
      Just my thoughts. And, as ever, I’ve would have been thinking the same, no matter Alonsos, Hamiltons, Webbos, etc, etc…. well, that’s not true. Maybe Stig could have been an exception to the rule.

      1. The problem (ignoring that Red Bull is actually an Austrian team, why are so many fixated with the Brits?) is that we’re only half way through the season and Massa was still a contender for the title – WAS. Now he’s a number two for the rest of the season. Red Bull have lost points by allowing their drivers to fight, Ferrari ought to be playing by the same rulebook.

      2. No! if the Stig was racing he wouldn’t of given up the position, and in press briefing he wouldn’t of said ANYTHING! unlike Ferrari who seemed to change stories all the time.

      3. 1. Breaching the rules: $100m fine big enough? Was a Brit team.

        2. This rule that was breached today was put in place to allow team mates to race each other without team pressure forcing a succession such as we witnessed today. Massa was 23 points behind his team mate. That really is very little halfway through a season where you earn 25 points for a win. The rule is also there to ensure that you and me get to see the drivers really competing against each other at the top level. Red Bull let their drivers race. McLaren let their drivers race. Today we learned that Ferrari prefer that their drivers don’t race. You want that? You support that??

        3 . Jean Todt has done nothing to indicate any favouritivism to Fiat. Think he’s kept his head down and down a decent job so far infact. Keith has a running poll of fan’s view of Jean’s performance so far – you might want to refer to that.

        F1 is a funny sport. Sport rock ‘n roll? Nah! More like sport fund managing… but still damn fun on-track!

        1. The moment of truth for Jean Todt has come just now. How FIA will judge on this matter, will show its real face. The Old One, with smell of old days perfumes, used often by Max before, or, what I very hope for, fresh and new, with no sympathy for RED team. I really miss for F1 like this. And hope Mr. Jean too.

    27. 5 hrs watchin F1 in dept–loved it as usual. As an Alonso and Ferrari fan, its mixed emotions for me today. The decision in my point of view was correct from Ferrari. As DC says its a team sport, you win and loose as a team. Alonso was faster and it WOULD have ended in tears as with the Red Bulls a few races ago. In my view All the teams have team orders and they all at some point favour a driver (see Christian Horner ordering Webber to give up his front wing to Vettel at Silverstone), just only Ferrari seem to be able to handle the situations appallingly. The fine is correct as a matter of principle (for having let the whole world know what was going on) but that should be it. I did feel however that it was a bit of a hollow victory for Alonso (his face on the podium said it all), and I feel desperately sorry for Massa and felt awful for him. This is a multi million business like all sports and the prize is immense at the end of it, and it only goes to 1 driver. I think the big teams are sometimes hipocrits as they All will favour the driver who has the most points and best chance to win the championship at some point, and with only 9 races to go, it looks like Ferrari have started early. this sort of thing goes on @ every race, but all the other teams have better “coded” expressions to keep the orders out of the media domain unlike Ferrari who always seem to make a hash of it.

      1. Jhonnie Siggie
        25th July 2010, 17:52

        “The fine is correct as a matter of principle (for having let the whole world know what was going on) but that should be it. ”

        So you would rather remain in the dark? Speak for yourself. I credit the Rob Smedley for having the decency to not hide his obvious disappointment at this team order. Had it not been for him, we would have been kept in the dark and no justice would have been done.

        The intellectual arguments about the justification for team orders should not distract us from the fact that Fellipe was handed heartbreak today and we should all express our solidarity.

      2. If it’s only a team sport, then why is there a Driver’s championship in addition to the Constructors’ championship ?

    28. Come on people, realize that the real penalty is still to come. The team orders ruling has been deferred.

      1. It’s been done all the time. Except now it’s Alonso in a Ferrari.

    29. Just a fine, what the heck? I’m sorry but the story keeps changing with these drivers and the team, if anything it should be treated same a lie-gate, DSQ for both drivers and a suspended 3 race ban.

      1. Jhonnie Siggie
        25th July 2010, 17:56

        True indeed…. this is on par with lie-gate in my opinion.

      2. 3 race-ban… and why not life-imprisonment? Come on man let’s be serious.

        1. 3 Race Ban, but that would mean MONZA without Ferrari! Not. Going. To happen.

        2. Jhonnie Siggie
          25th July 2010, 18:36

          CapeFear said “suspended 3 race ban” which does not mean they’ll miss races. The’ll essentially get the same punishment that Lewis got after lie-gate.

      3. Just a fine, but only for now. Todt will find it hard not to make a stance in the WMC.

    30. Jhonnie Siggie
      25th July 2010, 17:44

      Ron Dennis and Mclaren must be feeling vindicated right now after being seen as the bad guys after the Alonso/Hamilton clash. Unlike Mclaren, Ferrari have been cowed by Fernando into granting him # 1 status. Instead of manning up when he could not pass Massa, he whines on the radio calling the actual racing that him and Massa engaged in as ridiculous. If he has his way I would stop watching F1 next week because it’ll be such a bore.

    31. Whereever Alonso goes…fines follow!

    32. They can send McLaren with them. Turkey 2010 were also clear teamorders.

      1. are you joking??

      2. How was it? Both drivers where in fuel saving mode, would button of overtaken Hamilton? no. because both drivers had to hit 1:30, so if they hit that then no, button wouldn’t of overtook simple.

        But Hamilton posted a 1:33 the lap Button got close to him out of turn 8, it was driver error. So the move was done and Hamilton felt he had been betrayed. they even said it was wrong the way phil said he wouldn’t overtake, but I think if you look at the proper context which he thought if 1:30 time was hit then it wouldn’t happen.

        Of course that wouldn’t stop Button if he saw a chance to overtake though from a mistake.

        Team orders have been around remember last year in Germany when Rubens was told by Ross, “Rubens your pace is too slow, if you can’t pick it up you will need to let Jenson have a go”. That radio message is still up on F1.com for now.

        1. Yes, you are right — but Massa was not as slower as Barrichelo was in regards to his team-mate. In case of Brawn it was not a team order rather than an urge for Rubens to speed-up or else Button would catch him. Today Massa could easily defend his position and finish the race first. But it wasn’t meant to be, although if Stefano Domenicali went on the radio and said, “Felipe you are slower and Vettel is catching us, if you can’t go faster let Fernando have a go” things would be different — and I don’t believe Massa would hit Alonso if he tried to pass as many Ferrari fans say.

    33. Gentleman Alonso lol
      25th July 2010, 17:47

      My old dad has always said F1 was a corrupt sport. I used to laugh it off, but now I think Fergal Sharkey was right.

      1. Fergal Sharkey? Ain’t he a pop star?

        1. listen to your father by fergal sharkey

    34. Message to Rob Smedley (or whoever choose those words): next time can u use a more discreet way of passing on team orders?!?! PS and dont say SORRY!!!!! tut

      1. I think Rob Smedley chose very carefully those words, to be sure everybody could know what was Ferrari doing.

        Maybe I’m wrong but I’m afraid Rob has a dark future now in Ferrari.

        By the way, I don’t approve Ferrari action. I think they ruined an excellent weekend for them, for Massa and for Alonso.

        1. I agree IDR, Smedley was basically rebelling against his friend, Massa, being dumped into this position by the Alonso/Ferrari combo. It was a stupid decision all round, ruining a fantastic result for Ferrari. And Alonso could have accepted losing a few extra points, it’s not that critical – particularly compared to the damage this will do him and Ferrari.

      2. Smedly and Massa seemed to deliberately get this done in the most obvious way, just so we all know what’s going on

    35. “… the team had been heard instructing Massa that he was slower than his team mate”.

      I didn’t know you can be “instructed” that you are slower. You can be informed about that, but instructed? I don’t know, it doesn’t sound right.

    36. Now we’ll see if FIA still stands for Ferrari International Aid or not. Given that they have been found to be in breach of two seperate clauses in the regulations, something more than a fine must be enforced.

      For my part, the perfect penalty would be if Ferrari got no constructor’s points for the race and for Massa and Alonso to swap places to where they were before the on-track swap. It is is clearly the team that is at fault here. Sure, Alonso was heard on the radio complaining about Massa supposedly holding him up, but in actually passing him, he did no wrong. If the instruction came about as a result of him throwing his toys out of the pram, then perhaps a grid penalty of 5 or so places at the next race. However, if, as I read on the BBC website, the next meeting of the WMSC isn’t until September, I don’t see that happening.

      It’s worth noting that the last time a team was deemed to be in breach on article 151c of the sporting regulations, the FIA threw the book, the bookshelf and the library at them…

      1. And that team was a British team, so claims of nationalistic bias has this non-Italian, non-Spanish, non-French, non-Briton scratching his head…

      2. Close but not really. Actually i think the last team were RenaultF1 and they got of pretty lightly.
        But the rest of your post makes perfect sense.
        I do think the Stewards did throw in the 151c with this in mind (Mclarens fine), just to saveguard that Ferrari will be punished for something.

    37. Mclaren Turkey 2010 —- Button / Hamilton—-clear team orders….

      1. Two overtakes and contact equals team orders? It looked pretty disorderly to me.

      2. No, that’s not clear team orders at all.

        McLaren allowed their two drivers to fight for first place there and secondly, it was the opinion of Lewis’ engineer that Jenson wouldn’t overtake, a one off remark made at the spur of the moment as the engineer was looking at the data.

        It’s not the same as today’s race, not at all.

      3. @Marcello
        Look at it this way to smooth out the logic.
        I’m in the pub and see someone punch someone in the face and run off. He gets away with it. The following night I punch someone in the face and run off, but i get caught and punished. In my defense I say such and such did the same thing last night so I’m innocent.

        It makes no sense. Ferrari went against the rules and ruined what would have be a good scrap. Because you think someone else did the same thing is no defense. I hope they lose the points too.

    38. I think the WMC has to take this a lot further, otherwise their rules are not worth the paper they are written on.

      Red Bull has lost a lot of points this year allowing their racers to race. They did this (at least in part) because the rules specifically prohibit team orders.

      How much spice has that crash in Turkey added to this years championship? F1 (an otherwise fringe sport in Australia for 51 weeks of the year) has regularly and prominently been featured in the Australian press because of Red Bulls courage in allowing its two racers to go hard at each other.

      The rules are the rules and Ferrari should be stripped of all drivers and constructors championship points.

      Anything less makes F1 look like a farce.

      1. Wrong example there. RBR did not allow their drivers to race, just one of the drivers did not agree with the order and made the other one work for it.

    39. Alonso did nothing wrong at all. Nor Massa. Team made a big faff of it…should take the fine and all the bad press. thats all

    40. I’m guessing Eddy Jordan was part of the team who decided (after listening to their opinions – because there is no hard proof) they had broken the “disrepute” rule.

    41. This is a joke. They lyed to the media, fans and the stewards by stating no team orders were given. FIA said they were and they are now fined. One thing though Austraila 2009 Hamilton got DQ for lying to the race stewards so ferrari should get DQ as well. The FIA is all over the place.
      Mclaren lye = DQ
      Ferrari lye = result stands

      1. it it is my strong belief that FERRARI team boss Dominicali has influenced MASSA to say he allowed ALONZO to pass on order to escape team orders repurcussions
        DID ANYONE notice the way Dominicalli rushed to the stage after the drivers had posed for pictures…then he pretended to take both drivers Alonzo and MASSA BACK TO THE pondium to take another photo with him in the middle?..a replay of this scene may show that it was here that somewhere along this movement Massa was told to be the fall guy AND SAY THAT he was loosing speed which is not the case as the viewers so it live on TV…this is just my suspician…

    42. So, if Ferrari are still telling their story the way we heard it, I guess this is also “misleading the stewards”. Last time someone did that, they were disqualified, weren’t they? So if that is a precedent, both Ferrari’s should be disqualified, just like Hamilton was after Australia 2009.

      I happen to think that was again a case of Mosley led FIA still having a grudge against McLaren, and letting things get out of hand and dishing out overly harsh punishments, so I would prefer this not to be used as a precedent, but it shows that the team should get a strong penalty. Maybe WCC points taken away?

    43. If as David Coulthard and others insist, team orders cannot be stopped, then the rule should now be removed and replaced with one saying that it must be completely open. That way everyone will know when there are team orders, and we can judge the results ourselves on that basis…

      1. Fully agree with you there. Let the team announce it before the race.
        It will be fair to the fans who can freely choose to support such a team or not.
        Still i think there should be a limit as to what is allowed.

    44. Schumi held an interview post race and was talking first hand (2002, him+Barrichello). He was just saying how Stefano Domenicali (Ferrari team principal) would have regretted NOT making the call if, in 9 races time, Ferrari were to loose the drivers championship, the constructors championship, or even both, as a result of the points he would have lost today by NOT making the call. I didnt like Schumi in yrs gone by, but after proving to be the most successfull in history i learned to respect him. Its a gr8 point he makes (and btw he must know what hes on about)..

      1. How many constructor points did they gain out of what they did? 0 because it was a 1-2 either way. And if it was so hard to overtake on that circuit as Alonso claimed afterwards why was he worried that Vettel might overtake him?

        1. I agree with Schumi’s remarks.. but they should do it correctly. Turning the revs of Massa’s engine or telling him to save more fuel. Then they would explain that Alonso saved fuel as it seemed so after his first attempt to pass him. They way they did it, with Rob saying sorry, Alonso saying that he does not know what happened etc, that was what brought the sport into disrepute. Just like the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix.

          1. I am glad they did not fool anyone.
            I detest having to guess and argue about weather “safe fuel” actually ment, slow down and let your teammate pass you/dont pass your teammate or something similar.

    45. I’m thinking to myself how would we react, if the same message was framed differently: “Alonso is faster than you lad, and Vettel is lapping really fast now. That’s the situation on track. Our race might be in danger, or we might be fine, so it’s your call, boy”. Now all is in the open, and Felipe makes his decision.

      I think it would be much cleaner, and better than: “Can you confirm you understood that message”.

    46. Oh I love the Ferrari “fans”.

      You should look at McLaren in turkey, my back end!

      Clearly in turkey Jenson took Lewis by surprise, Lewis decided he was having none of it, so Jenson submitted.

      It is quite common for the criminal to point the finger at something else to divert your attention. However in todays society most of us are aware of this, so grow up and eat your humble pie.

      The FIA have a nice tight grip on Ferrari’s cojones. It is their upcomance for their silly remarks and constant outbursts.

      Maybe, one day, Ferrari will learn that they are not above everybody and their days of having vetos are over.

      Whilst they don’t learn this they will constantly have the book throw at them.

      I fear, when they do realise, they will probably run off crying and quit the sport.

      1. Spot on. Fuel saving was a priority before the McLarens swapped positions in Turkey. If Jenson was willing to accept team orders – which I doubt – he wouldn’t have even attempted to pass Lewis. Lewis, like Senna and Mansell, would rather crash than hand over a position.

    47. $100,000? McLaren got a $100,000,000 fine in 07 and it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on them…

      1. Do not worry yet. The WMC CAN still hand out a more substantial penalty to Ferrari for this.

    48. I’m pleasantly surprised by this. Maybe I’m cynical from the Mosley years or just plain cynical but I didn’t expect anything to happen. I may be a huge Ferrari fan but the most important thing is to have fair racing. It can’t happen in every circumstance say when a driver gets a better car or whatever but on track it should be free from manipulation. The racing comes first, personal driver/team preference comes a long second.

    49. Was i the only one when Stefano Domenicali said no team order were given just felt like he was calling everybody who was watching stupid. I couldn’t belive it i think he should apologise to everyone. so angry at him, show the fans of F1 a little respect

      1. flossyblossy
        25th July 2010, 22:44

        Absolutely!!! He said there was no team orders and then gave that wry smile that he’s so good at. I can’t imagine anyone missed that. I spent 10 minutes shouting at the TV (what i shouted isn’t repeatable!).

    50. So Ferrari are hit with a $100k fine, so the Stewards think that there is a case to answer for, Alonso should be worried about those 25 points he “earned” this afternoon.

    51. You know who’ll be loving all this… I bet Max has already prank called Montezemolo saying some cocky comments, hung up, and had a good old giggle to himself. Then probably called Briatore for the sheer fun of it.

    52. Teams should not be allowed to convey any information to a driver about his team-mate. That would surely end team orders once and for all.

      1. It wouldn’t work. Say they are racing and I mean really racing how would they know about the gap or how to manage it or what strategy etc they were on? It’s a nice idea but it’s also a minefield. I do like how people are looking at ways to try to stop this in the future though :)

        1. Hate to say it, because seems such a dark ages option, but ban on team to driver radio. Allow them to send a signal for ‘BOX’ to appear on the wheel.

          But… really hate this option. Drivers need to know stats about their race position, lapping drivers on their tail, safety issues.

          Dunno! Really don’t – and I’m usually gobby about these things. Teams can apply orders in private pre-race anyway, so what can you do?

          I really dislike Eccelstone and DC’s take on this that says get over it, teams can decide race finish order – THAT ISN’T SPORT! But fail to see workable solution.

          Problem goes back to a very salient F1 feature – money. We often hear non-fans decry F1 as not being a ‘sport’ as teams are run as a business and variable levels of financial support queer the pitch. They’re right. FiA did try to address this with the proposed tech expenditure cap which was the sub-text that nearly split the teams from the FiA last season.

          100K is acceptable to Ferrari for getting the driver they want on the top step. Knowing you, you would have been gutted to see Felipe move aside for Alonso.

          What, as a Ferrari fan, is your feeling on this?

    53. I guess some of you expect penalty more severe than in Crash-gate, just because the red guys are involved.

      1. You can hardly get less severe than Crashgate.
        Renault was let off the hook, Alonso only testified, Piquet was handed immunity and both Symonds and Briatore were given a penalty that was not worth the paper it was written on.
        So yes, i expect a real penalty in this case.

    54. Its not enough! Massa must get the race win.
      Shame on Alonso and Ferrari

    55. Excellent blog Keith, thanks.

      I’m getting the feeling that controversy is getting to be the most exciting part of F1.

      With regard to today’s race, it seems to me that:
      – F1 is a team sport
      – teams compete for the Drivers and Constructors championships
      – thus, to ban team orders invites controversy
      – perhaps Massa should consider that if he were not so many points behind Alonso, things today may probably have been different.
      – the comparison with cycling doesn’t add up for me. The Tour de France is one event for about 19 days (weeks??). F1 is 19 separate and individual events.

      Today Vettel had a bad start and the Ferraris got ahead – and nobody challenged them though Vettel got close at times. P4 was about 26 secs of the pace and all were lapped up to P8. And that for me is boring. So I think that F1 have deeper problems to address than banning team orders in a team sport.

      1. Still, TOs are banned, that’s the way things are right now, and if the FIA can prove their case, Ferrari should pay the penalty as defined in the law – was it not, after all, Alonso himself who complained about stewards “manipulating” the race in the wake of the Safety Car controversy a couple weeks ago?

        1. It was, but he’s a petulant idiot, so you shouldn’t pay too much attention to him!

    56. I think that $100,000 is a token sum… what it really says is that the stewards know Ferrari are cheats! They’ve been branded now, just to compound their miserable year so far! Hehe…

    57. $100,000 is a loose change from Luca’s pocket.

      What a bargain… Now wonder FIA loves Ferrari. Fine 100,000. FIA richer by $100,000. Fernando and Ferrari keeps the Points from a well manipulated race.

      And who are the biggest losers “The Fans” ……

      1. Maybe it’s because they can’t hand out larger finds which is why they’ve handed over to the WMSC (well they probably would anyway).
        As someone has said before, that’s where things will get serious if they do.

    58. They should just reverse the positions for the drivers points and make it no points for the team, I’d be happy with that.

      But a fine? That sends the message team orders every time its worth it.

    59. These guys are supposed to be the best and are undoubtedly the highest paid racing drivers in the world. If Alonso is the faster driver then let him pass the slower guy in front of him regardless of what team he’s on.

      Team orders should be upheld and all points taken away from people who violate them. Simple as that.

      Besides, Alonso cries like a biatch about everything.

    60. Do you think alonso will call the race result a joke and say sorry to the fans like he did in valencia because the results wasn’t a true representation of the actual race just wondering

    61. Would Massa have let Alonso through without the Code instruction from Smedley?

      Would Smedley have given the instruction without being told to by Management?

      The problem is political Alonso No1 Driver not getting his own way (Time at Mclarean) and Management.

      What of all the lies that the team have told to the public around the world in denial of TO. Sport fixing in any other sport is a serious allegation / crime, is F1 above this?

      Where does it say that F1 is a team sport, does that mean it’s fair game for No2 driver to hold up drivers deliberatly, so that no1 driver can take advantage of large gap, act like a wing man. Where does it end. Do people remember when Micheal ruined the sport with himself, Ferrari and poor attitudes

    62. For sake of balance Ferrari should loose the points gained during this race and end it there, that would make it clear about team orders. Maybe it should be more severe since the way they were wording their communications was just a slap in the face of the stewards, thinking they are idiots and don’t know what they are doing.. the only idiots here are in red.

    63. I truly feel sorry for Massa and in parc ferme he seemed dejected… It was his race and he had a brilliant start. I also kind of feel bad for Alonso just because both drivers’ achievements are always undermined by Domenicali he is such an a-hole always crying about race fixing and then he does it himself…. shame on him. This kind of garbage ruins racing

    64. lets be honest f1 is dying…i thought 2006,07 & 08 where the best years of recent times,f1 is a sport where over taking is so hard and they visit tracks where over taking is almost impossible,but when we do get good races most people wanna moan about it,it doesnt seem to happen in any other motor sport that i know of,f1 teams dont care about what keeps us happy they just want the best result a team could ask for,massa was quick but not quick enough,he did so well but he may of cost them this 1/2 finish who knows,in the end massa was a tad over 4seconds behind alonso so that tells ya that alonso was quicker,but look how much vettel caught massa,in this sport you cant risk things,i think ferrari made the right choice,would people say the same if it was mclaren

      1. I think F1 is on a very firm up. 2009 was a bit of a lull after a bad decision over the ‘double diffuser’ left Brawn with a huge head start, but this season has been fantastic despite Red Bull’s apparent big advantage. Ferrari catching up also adds to the mix. Which is why the team order today made so many people disillusioned, I guess. It was also a really hideous order to give Massa on his ‘come back’ race, one year on, leading well and set to win.

        The idea Massa was holding up Alonso is just daft. He’d pulled 3 seconds or more ahead at one point, Alonso caught up again, then after Alonso passed, Massa stuck with him easily. And Vettel can’t get past anyone in a half-decent car.

    65. When Massa got the order, his response should have been, “well, he wasn’t faster at the start when I blew by him like he was tied to the ground.” If Fred wants to be #1 then he should learn to clean up his own mistakes, and make the pass. Really pathetic show by Fred and his team today. Vettel was not a threat, there was no possible altruistic motive for Massa to let Alonso by to protect the win for the team.

      This is exactly the same as that infamous Austria GP and Ferrari should know better. Oh, and Todt should recuse himself.

    66. to over take”i missed that bit out sorry

    67. This matter is stupid. Time to fixe it letting it go. All team do the same, all of them have a nº1 driver, but are less obvious. Vettel and Ham are nº1 and you all will see that are going to get in front of their teammates until the end of the season.
      The problem this time was that Felipe (apparently) did not know, he (and probably his engineer) was such furious that did a terribly stupid job, wich is that obvious that means “I´m the real winner” not this chap. Felipe is over for Ferrari this year, for sure.
      The others teams and drivers do a much better job than him, in spite of I´m sure he is capable to do but he didn´t want.
      When a driver thinks and speaks about their rivals for the championship talk about Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso, why do you think is for?.

    68. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/fia-fines-ferrari-schumacher-and-barrichello-646489.html

      check out what they did last time, can’t see what they can do now, only make it up as they go along (FIA that is)

      1. it’s different. The fine was because Michael let Rubens step into the highest step of the podium.

        plus, now team orders are illegal (they weren’t then)

    69. Leave the points as they are, but give both Drivers 5 position pen at next GP

    70. There has always been team orders, more or less disguised. This year, for instance, McLaren has handled their drivers instructing them to save fuel at specific times of the race. And team orders is the only way to understand the reactions against Webber in the Red Bull incident in the Turkish GP.

      So they all use team orders. Today Ferrari (or Massa) didn’t disguise/camouflage the orders. Fining them for this is a fine for not acting as good as the other teams (or just not willing to act). I think F1 is for racing not for acting/performing.

      FIA must improve their regulations to have more consistent and seamless rules. And more important, they have to improve the technical regulations in order to let faster cars overtake the slower ones.

    71. The team order rule is too vague. They should just give Alonso a time penalty big enough to drop him to second, take away Ferrari’s constructors points on top of the $100000 fine and leave it at that until they make the rule clear and unambiguous.

    72. Ferrari are back. Back with a win, and as traditional full of controversy and cheat!
      Alonso made a mistaque at the start and didn’t get punished for it…
      I wonder what storm Ferrari would have made if it had been Mclaren doing this? And how much Mclaren or any other team would have been punished for it?
      Unfortunately the best driver today was punished (Massa) and ultimately Ferrari should have been penalised as a team and both cars desqualified with victory given to Vettel…
      But then again F1 hasn’t been fair or just for a long time… a bit like football I guess – FIA, FIFA – clubs of elites where sport has no part in principle…

    73. How did Raikonen win the WDC in 2007?. Felipe and the team did much better that time than today.
      But, that was not race fixing, in fact was championship fixing!. In this case is OK, because Felipe could not win the championship, but is not fixing?.
      If it is fixing, it is. Does not matter if…. Do not go that way mates, F1 is this. The teammate is there to collect points from the others, not for winning races if nº1 is behind him.

    74. This is NOT racing. Pure and simple.

    75. theRoswellite
      25th July 2010, 19:58

      A final comment, considering his behavior while driving for McLaren…his “blackmail” threats…and his non-involvement in the “crashgate” Singapore GP…I can see why Alonso would be perturbed by not being allowed to assume his rightful place at the top of the podium…his entitled podium.

    76. So the FiA wants to start cracking down on Team Orders now? Maybe they should look at some previous races this season.

    77. Absolute disgrace.

      These teams receive Television money in return for RACING. Instead they give us a Taxi driver procession.

      Ferrari and the drivers are equally responsible. The Team shouldn’t have given the orders. Massa should have refused. Alonso shouldn’t have suggested it.

      -> No points for constructors or drivers, both drivers disqualified from the race, no TV money for Ferrari this season.

    78. Its been a tough few years to be an Alonso fan in the UK. I was sickened by the way the race unfolded today and the way the result was arrived at, but lets consider the following:

      1.It can probably be defended legally, but clearly this was team orders.
      2.However if you’ve watched F1 over the last few years you have probably seen 20? 30? (any one like to count Keith?) such occurrences. Was today’s incident the only one worth punishing? Does it really mean certain rules are only enforceable in the last 3 races?
      3.Two technological developments compound the situation – firstly increased and public communication between driver & team, secondly the decrease in on track overtaking.
      4.Alonso has on many occasions acted in a way that makes it hard to support him, but there have also been many situations that the press have perhaps manipulated things to create the pantomime villain that gets readers. Compare FA’s clearly luke warm enthusiasm & embarrassment to today’s result to Singapore 08 where he was overjoyed to have won. One thing today proved to me was that he genuinely was not involved in the Piquet/Briatore/Symmonds plot. Lets remember that.
      5.It was horrible to witness Rob Smedley having to explained the team perspective on the incident. Teams will find a way of enforcing orders one way or another – if they ban radio transmissions then pit boards can easily hide a coded message. There’s nothing worse than unenforceable rules. Let’s end the ban on team orders.
      6.There is some tension in having two championships running concurrently – in the 80s I seem to remember a period where only the first car in a team contributed points to the manufactures championship (to help 1 car teams like Ligier & Wolf I think). This needs to be addressed.
      7.Overtaking – if this was easier I think the problem would not arise.

      A sad and depressing day for all, but I’m not sure that fines and bans are going to change anything.

    79. Boy!!!, they sure ripped apart Alonso during press conference..

      And for the people who are saying that Ferrari did this for the championships, mathematically Felipe can still win this championship..

      I hope Felipe atleast finishes above Alonso this year.. that will teach the Alonso not to act like a ‘prima-donna’

    80. Ferrari today has done something that could be avoid. Anyway, the other teams use the teamwork, too. What about Red Bull that want to favour Vettel…And what about McLaren? The consumption of fuel it’s only a pretext to give way to Hamilton…Ferrari is only more explicit than other teams…

    81. Hamilton was disqualified in Australia last year for attempting to manipulate the result through not telling the truth and yet every single Ferrari representative today including Massa, Alonso, Smedley, Coliani and Domenicali all spurted blatent lies to similarly cover up clear race manipulation and we are expected to lap it up and act like it’s fine?

      1. I hope the WMC disqualifies Ferrari for this. The standard that has been set is that lying and covering up what was a minor infraction on the track is far more severe than that infraction. Its not even just that Australian decision. There are numerous other examples where its been set that if you decide to lie to cover yourselves you’re going to be made to wish you hadn’t. Its absolutely clear, not just from the radio exchanges but also from the press conference, that Massa didn’t just decide to let Alonso by and he wasn’t happy at all that it happened. Yet they are now trying to make that be their story. Its not believable, its clearly a lie, and the standard set for a cover up is a disqualification of some sort. I wouldn’t say this warrants a disqualification from the entire season championship, but certainly it does from this race.

        1. You mean the multiple reprimands and toothless penalties that benefited Mclaren recently are ok. Hamilton and the team lied to the Stewards in Australia ’09 as well… let’s not get hysterical.

          Ferrari’s actions were a disgrace because they were so foolish and blatant. They have forced the FIA’s hand. Turning revs down, save fuel, tires, don’t attack etc. are all team orders and illegal… but it’s done every race… let’s be realistic.

          1. Yes. exactly. McLaren lied in Aus 09 and were promptly disqualified.

    82. So the price for a “result-fix” is €100 000 (~ price of a front wing or two). So when they need one, they can buy one…. or? I guess it’s an attractive price for Ferrari to consider for the next races if they need to be fixed. Add to that that Ferrari won’t loose their points, F1 is becoming more and more fair, huh?

      I’d like to repeat what Alonso said on the air – “This is ridiculous”. But what exactly is ridiculous? The fact that he can’t win without asking dad for help? Or that he had to pay his way to win?

      Why don’t FIA put prices on other cheats too? A jump start may cost 100′ too. A cut could cost a bit less though. Considering the budget Ferrari has – they will certainly be able to win most races this way – The Alonso Way. But I guess they already know this since previous years. ‘Cry yourself out of the problems’ used to work in preschool, but now it apparently seems to work in F1 too.

      A fine is hardly even noticeable for Ferrari. What’s more – if FIA don’t scratch the Ferrari drivers’ points from this race – FIA will automatically start a corrupted cheat-auction in the largest racing-series. What hinders a team from doing the same next time? $100 000? Is that all?

    83. Marc Connell
      25th July 2010, 20:36

      switch the drivers around. Imagine it was massa passing alonso. I bet alonso will complain and leave ferrari and no fine would be put down.

    84. Disqualification from the whole event was the only punishment that fitted here. For the whole team.

      Just for once, I wish a driver would blatantly ignore the team. Be a man, a proper RACING DRIVER instead of a corporate puppet and say “sod off, if he wants my position, tell him to earn it.”

      If the FIA had any brains they would outlaw contracts that dictated who was a number one/two driver. And make a huge example of Ferrari over this whole episode.

    85. ok
      could anybody explain to me why this isn’t a team order “Hamilton asked the team: “If I back off, is Jenson going to pass me or not?” McLaren’s answer to him was: “No, Lewis. No.” (turkey)
      and this is a team order
      “Alonso is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?
      Rob Smedley” (today)
      because i am having a hard time to find the difference

      1. Because after that transmission Button overtook and Hamilton had to fight to get the position back. :)

      2. MacademiaNut
        25th July 2010, 21:19

        That could simply mean, how fast is Jenson? Is he fast enough to pass me? “No Lewis, No” – means “he is not fast enough to pass you even if you slow it down a notch”. Jenson is also on a fuel-saving mode, so his pace is not up to match or pass you (even if you slow down a bit).

    86. “Is Jenson going to pass me or not?”
      “No Lewis, no.”

      I’m sorry but that are also clear team orders from McLaren to me.

      + I don’t see why Ferrari bought the win. They were 1-2 and they still are 1-2. Apparently the FIA are scared of Fernando Alonso winning the WDC, instead of their Lewis Hamilton.

      There were, there are and there will always be team orders. I don’t see why this particularly one should be punished.

      1. Let me make this plain at the outset; I do not support Ferrari.
        But what is actually wrong with team orders? Team managers take the long view of racing situations and they ‘manage’ their drivers.
        They look at the contest as a season-long affair, just like a football team manager does. What’s wrong with that?
        Ferrari won, they are the winners of this particular race. The only losers are people who bet on Massa winning instead of Alonso.
        Next time, bet on Ferrari instead.

        1. “But what is actually wrong with team orders?”

          Because in the rules they are illegal…

      2. good point brian,it seems other teams use team orders and its over looked,but if the ferrari does it everyone says how bad it is,imagine if it was mclaren that done this today i think alot of people would be like oh thats legal or fair…………

      3. Two differences… first even though the engineer told Lewis that he wouldn’t be passed if he slowed, Button didn’t back off at all. If those were team orders they were incredibly sloppy in giving the team orders to only one of the drivers. The actions of Button after that radio exchange seems to indicate that it was instead a driver getting an opinion from his race engineer rather than team orders. Finally in the end, despite that exchange (whether they were or were not orders) the final results of the race were not impacted by them, as they did end up settling it between themselves on the track (nearly running themselves out of fuel before the end of the race as a result).

        1. I think they were sloppy orders.
          After twe two overtakes, Button engineer was yelling to him “FUEL CRITICAL”.
          I think he misunderstood the TO the first time.

    87. Not the first time Ferrari have engineered a Hockenheim victory and not the first time Alonso has had a victory engineered for him – Fernando Singapore 08 (even if he had no say in that which I respect) and Hockenheim and Ferrari in 99 with Salo leading who let Irvine through for the win, Irvine being the challenger to Hakkinen for the 99 championship after Schumacher’s Silverstone crash. Of course that would have been Salo’s only victory, as deserved as Massa’s here after all he’s been through lately :(

    88. If Petrov was told by his Race Engineer Mark Slade that his engine revolutions would be turned town, should his style of gear shifting not be modified, one wonders why Ferrari didn’t actually do the same thing to Massa?

    89. this is coming from a ferrari guy. Massa and Alonso are employees of Ferrari and are supposed to do what they are told. Fine or punish Ferrari. i wouldnt argue with Ferrari being removed from the constructors championship. this crap should not be happening anymore. if Alonso was that much faster, let it play out on track Ferrari should have their asses handed to them for this. leave the drivers out of it.

    90. for once i believe this is not Alonso’s fault i do think he had a say in it though when he mentioned this was stupid early on because massa wouldn’t let him pass though for what happened i believe that both drivers and the team need to be penalised for the simple fact when it was hamilton there was major up roar but not for ferrari they broke the rules and need to be punished a small fine of $100,000 is not enough if ferrari get away with it it will destroy f1

    91. MacademiaNut
      25th July 2010, 21:23

      I think FIA should just change the rule to allow team orders – Just accept the reality and move on. Ferrari 1 & 2. As long as the team order doesn’t mess up other team’s finishing of the race, they can choose to have whichever car they want on the top.

      It is only slightly worse than: finishing in two positions and decide after the race you want in those two positions. :)

    92. i cant believe it, hamilton stripped of that spa win for trying to race against Raikonen and here a team with a glamourous reputation orders one of its drivers to give way because of alonso’s petulance has prevented an epic battle and all they get is a fine. this represents double standards by the fia im afraid.

    93. macca fans
      mine was a retorical questions

    94. I don’t agree with this penalty. I’m a McLaren fan (and therefore, definitely not a Ferrari apologist), but I remember a scenario in 2008 at the very same circuit when Ron Dennis radioed Kovalainen and told him the same thing that Rob Smedley told Massa: your teammate is faster than you. (i.e., Let him through.) Kovalainen let Hamilton through into the hairpin, and there was no penalty.

      I have a feeling this penalty has more to do with F1 politics than it does with enforcing the letter of the law.

      1. I don’t remember it clearly, but presumably the team got more points by Kovalainen letting Hamilton through? There shouldn’t be a problem with a much slower teammate letting a faster one past – otherwise you’re asking the team to shoot itself in the foot, which seems a little unreasonable to me.

        The team didn’t get more points on this occasion and Massa looked as quick as Alonso. It’s surely far too early in the season to consign Massa to the role of number two driver? Red Bull have lost points this season by following the rules and allowing their drivers to race, why should Ferrari be exempted from following the rules?

    95. ‘the driver needs a team, without the team your out there sitting in your underpants’. lol
      David Coulthard on the F1 Forum, 25/07/10

    96. if alonso win the championship then they would of bought it for $100,000 bargin

      1. if he wins by 7 points

      2. Not ‘would of’ – ‘would have’

    97. This was a very clear teamorder, imagine how Felipe feel… after his accident last year – now first time back on top and team disallows him to win…

    98. Im not a Ferrari fan, but I’ve mixed feelings about this. And its hard for me to find a solution.

      Each team having 2 cars. They need to do what benefits them. (the TEAM)

      Being angry for this is a bit hipocrital. But at the same time, as spectator, you wanna see real racing fights.

      What about having just 1 car per team? that would be fair. But nobody –including me– wants that.

      Maybe we should accept this things and all of this must be… -say the things like they are- (i don’t know the word in english)

      Maybe if every team would be forced to say: “X is my first driver and Y is my second”.

      I know my english is awful and half of the things I said will be misunderstood.

      1. “Maybe if every team would be forced to say: “X is my first driver and Y is my second”.”
        Well that might be a good idea. Let’s have nominated no1

        1. aAARGH!
          Let’s have nominated No1 and No2 drivers as well as team orders so that every one knows what is going and to remove the need for ‘coded messages’ from engineer to driver.

          1. And if the teams *don’t* want to differentiate their drivers?

            Now Ferrari have established theirs, it’ll be interesting to see if it works in their favour. There are sound reasons for having two lead drivers: driver motivation and the teams not really knowing who their best driver might be. Who would Red Bull pick right now, for example? Vettel, if pushed to chose I’m sure, but as he showed today he makes some really bad racing decisions under pressure. Maybe Webber is a safer bet.

            Besides the real point isn’t that FIA and the teams don’t want team orders – it’s the race spectators and viewing public who don’t want them! Hence the rule introduction. No other reason.

    99. 100000 mean nothing. Points do. So drop points.

    100. Alonso called the situation ridiculous when he was trying to pass Massa. I’m asking myself yet what Alonso meant when he said that, maybe during the battle for position Alonso was thinking that Massa was thinking as him: “Alonso is number-f…-one, so I should let him pass”. What is the problem, Alonso? If you’re so good racing-driver, why you would be able to pass Massa in normal conditions?

      1. Sorry, I mean “If you’re so good racing-driver, why you would not be able to pass Massa in normal conditions?”

      2. He did find himself in the same position for the 3rd time this year. And he complained about it already in Australia.
        So here he was, the guy bearing the weight of bringing the team back to to top, having to trail his team mate again. I can understand him feeling gutted about it.

        That does not mean i agree with the way the team reacted to this outcry (just like they would have done better not to in Valencia and Silverstone).

    101. Remove their constructor’s points

      1. And Alonso’s points and Massa’s for letting it happen. He did not have a say and if he did it would cost him his seat at Ferrari.

    102. Either way the big loser from this is the FIA – good luck with Todt trying to enforce a penalty for team orders.

    103. I still remember Austria 2003…

      1. Austria 2002 wasn’t it?

      2. I still remember Schumacher passing Raikkonen and winning despite a pit stop fire, yes…

    104. How stupid Ferrari would have looked if they let Massa win and later on Alonso loses the WDC by 6 points.

      Every team has team orders, I don’t see why Ferrari in particularly should be punished for it.

      If rules are rules, what about this one, article 2.2.1 appendix L of the sporting regulations:

      “The wearing of jewellery in the form of body piercing or metal neck chains is prohibited”

      Then I would say remove somebody else’s points. But oh, I forgot the British stewards had “no concerns”.

      1. I don’t understand why this is such a British issue. British stewards? The same ones that told Ferrari three times to give the place back at Silverstone which they refused to do?

        If you want examples of bias, perhaps you should try looking how the FIA helped Ferrari over the last how many years to the detriment of other teams.

      2. Ben,

        You are exactly right. Rules are in fact rules; however, you can break rules whenever you want, but you better be ready to face the consequences if you are caught.

        For example, the speed limits on public roads aren’t just suggestions, but there is nothing in your car (yet) that actually prevents you from going faster than the posted limit. If the limit is 50 mph, and you decide to go 55 mph then you should accept the risk that the police may pull you over and hand you a ticket. Alternatively, the police officer at the time may decide that he or she isn’t concerned about someone going 5 mph over the limit, but is rather more worried about people going 15 mph over the limit.

        If you are disregarding discretion in the rules are rules argument, you should then argue that the police officer should pull over anyone that is going 1 mph over the speed limit instead of using his or her own judgment. Do you really think that Lewis Hamilton’s ear piercings are legitimately detrimental to the sport as a whole?

    105. get rid of Alonso. He’s been in the middle of every big F1 problem since 2008

      1. he didn’t have any infractions in 2009 that I can think of… all he did in 2009 was suck

        OK… that’s not fair…

        Man… to think I used to be a passionate Alonso fan back when he was fighting Schumi… now I just feel disgusted

    106. Don’t worry so much about this, this happens every race, the only thing is that it is not so obvious.

    107. $100,000?

      They must be laughing. If that’s the only penalty they’re going to get, I can’t see much in the way to stop them from doing it again. The rules should be amended to make it absolutely clear: if any team attempts to manipulate the race outcome by issuing team orders, they instantly get disqualified from the race and served with a one-race ban.

    108. No, that´s no way to win
      Alonso and Spain the great loser
      I will never again see F1

      The stewards have made a fool

    109. Its Hammer Time
      26th July 2010, 0:05

      This sort of behaviour today…by any team…brings the whole sport into disrepute.

      Neither Massa nor Alonso did anything wrong. The team have been fined for their transgression. Further to this, i hope the WMSC revise the classification to show Massa as 1st and Alonso as 2nd. Further to this, the ferrari should have the points for the Hocenheim race stripped.

      This would send a clear message to the teams that “fuel saving” and “he’s faster than you” don’t wash.

      If i had paid £500 for a ticket this weekend I would write to Ferrari for a refund.

      In fact, if similar were to happen in Spa next month (when I am going), I WILL ask for a refund from the offending team.

      After such an exciting season so far…I feel sick and dis-interested in watching races won like today…

    110. Its Hammer Time
      26th July 2010, 0:05

      This sort of behaviour today…by any team…brings the whole sport into disrepute.

      Neither Massa nor Alonso did anything wrong. The team have been fined for their transgression. Further to this, i hope the WMSC revise the classification to show Massa as 1st and Alonso as 2nd. Further to this, the ferrari should have the points for the Hocenheim race stripped.

      This would send a clear message to the teams that “fuel saving” and “he’s faster than you” don’t wash.

      If i had paid £500 for a ticket this weekend I would write to Ferrari for a refund.

      In fact, if similar were to happen in Spa next month (when I am going), I WILL ask for a refund from the offending team.

      After such an exciting season so far…I feel sick and dis-interested in watching races won like today…

    111. If a driver loses 5 places for changing a gearbox prior to race start, Ferrari and their drivers should be dropped at least 5 places at their next GP start. This type of contrived manipulation should not be encouraged. Just it’s blatant execution deserves a penalty for stupidity alone.

    112. Ferrari doesn’t need team orders on their drivers if they already have a 1-2 finish in the bag. It’s better to have an honest race rather than being condemned of team orders. Alonso & Massa are very good drivers & they can make up points on the second half of the season easily now that Ferrari is back on track.

    113. Since Ferrari seem so keen to play the ‘team’ card all of the time, then they should be punished as a ‘team’. That includes ‘all’ of the team.

      If you’ve done it once before and annoyed the public, then doing it a second time with a rule in place that specifically forbids it is just going a step too far.

      They have been found guilty of two breaches of rule 39.1 and one breach of 151.c. $100,000 does not in any way cover that. It barely covers the catering bill.

    114. Objectively, Ferrari, Alonso and Massa should all be punished for participating in race fixing.

      $100,000 is a slap on the wrist. All points should be lost for that race and a possible expulsion from the next race should be considered.

      If the FIA puts such a rule in place but doesn’t enforce it to an extent to prevent teams from breaking it in the future, then they must take some of the blame too.

      Personally, I agree with those that say Massa was put under duress by the team to let Alonso pass. Alonso instigated it with his “this is ridiculous” rant over the radio. Massa would have incurred blowback from Ferrari somewhere down the line.

      People often criticize Schumacher for his history of rule breaking and his preferred position within his teams. But I wonder how Felipe would respond if asked which driver he would prefer as a teammate.

      A poster in another thread stated that many people have an “inbuilt hatred” of Alonso. I wasn’t born not liking Alonso, I acquired it over years of watching him complain like a little girl.

      1. Points lost and expulsion from next race? are you serious? i said it before and i’ll say it again, Silverstone and Hockenheim 2008, Heikki let Hamilton past, twice, no one complained then, did you complain then? Were you thinking the same?

        Let me guess, you must be English

        1. wait… what?!??!

          you think that KOV “let” HAM thru at Silverstone 2008??

          Was I watching the same race?

          Maybe under the blue flags (just kidding)… Did HAM not lap all the way up to 3rd place in that race? Stop me if I am wrong… trying to pull this from memory…
          but this was running with heavy wets… and if I recall HAM barged through past KOV somewhere around Stowe (maybe?).

          Hey, look, sometimes we interpret different things when we look at the same events, but come on! You have to give HAM that one! He was a clear 1.5 seconds faster than anyone else that day, if I remember correctly. Cut the guy some slack, he really earned that win (and that pass on KOV)

    115. Remember the safetycar incident with Hamilton?
      Alonso cried about fixed race. Well who fixes race but himself and Ferrari? I am a collector of Tamiya RC cars, and I will now get rid of all things Ferrari and Alonso I own! Watch Ebay folks, lots of Tamiya F1 cars going on sale cheap as i dislike the team and it’s #1 driver. Got no respect for them anymore.

    116. Guys guys guys… Alonso was clearly faster than Massa all season, so I don’t see why risk it! We’ve seen what happened in Red Bull… I hate team orders, except when they make sense. Honestly Webber should be given a chance to win it this year, it might be his last. Vettel just turned 23…

    117. More interestingly, since team orders are technically banned under the current F1 rules any case where it can be proved that they were deployed could be construed as fraud (ie criminal) due to the ability to bet on the outcome of the race. Let us not forget both cricket and football players have both had criminal proceedings taken against them in match fixing cases (Bruce Grobbelar, Hansie Kronje)

    118. I have to agree with Salty. There was no excuse for what Ferrari did today, it effectively killed off the grands prix in my opinion. I have never been a fan of the argument of drivers being held up ‘by a slower car infront’ as others have suggested on this forum. If Fernando was so fast, why was he behind Felipe for the majority of the race?
      Lets not forget that Massa had to pass his team mate and Vettel at the start, maintaining that advantage way beyond the first round of pitstops. We keep hearing about how wonderful a driver Fernando is, he has achieved so much and inspired so many, but I don’t want to read about it I want to see it! What has angered me today is that we, the fans, were robbed of seeing Massa and Alonso going wheel to wheel for victory. This pairing was one of the most anticipated of the off season, and racing is, lest we forget, the reason we watch this sport.
      As one of my Brazilian friends said to me after the race, ‘it’s not the first time Ferrari have f***ed one of our drivers’. I admit, as I watched the post race interview, my thoughts turned to the A1 Ring eight years ago and a very simular thing happening with Rubens Barrichello. As they say, a leopard never changes its spots!

    119. I really think that Ferrari’s $100,000 fine is the tip of the iceberg. For the stewards, the max fine they could impose was $100,000 USD. So the only other penalty would have been a loss of points and/or position for the team and/or Alonso. I hope WMC will take up the case, and I believe they will as the reaction on Twitter and across the F1 blogosphere has not been very Forza Ferrari.

      Not only were they found breaching 39.1, but also Article 151.c) of the International Sporting Code. The last time this happened was with the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. However, Renault rightly fired Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds. Thus the penalty received was apt. The other time this happened was with the spygate saga. Now we all know what happened there.

      With this incident I would certainly expect the fine on Ferrari to be increased to at least $1,000,000 if not $10,000,000. The other side would be the points/position penalty. I am unsure if Alonso is really to blame. There was the one murky audio transmission. For the team I think the penalties could easily be a loss of constructor points at the event. Though there is every chance that it could go to a loss of all WCC points. Especially if Mosley was still running the FIA. Though he is not, and I am unsure of the leniency or severity that will be applied by the World Motor Sport Council.

      So that is my take for the possible WMC hearing, not the team orders, as there is no way you can defend that Alonso passed Massa, under no influence from the team.

      1. I was supprised and encouraged by the Stewards actually handing out a penalty and calling in the WMC to rule about it.

        As you say Lord Stig, from past experience the 151c can be used to impose very hefty penalties indeed.
        In effect the WMC and Todt now have to make clear what they will be doing with team orders in the future (hard to prove and enforce rule), but Ferrari will be handed a bigger fine and maybe lose constructors points (like McLaren for Hungary 2007) based on 151c.

        I think both Massa and Alonso were not expecting the team to do this (yet). Alonso must have realized it later on and was therefore carefull to ask after the race (“did Massa have a gearbox issue?”).

    120. I think that paying a fine is not enough. Otherwise, will open the precedent of in some special circunstancies to pay a fine to break the rules.

      Thats not fair.

    121. The fine is ridiculous,the best response from the FIA right now would be to punish ferrari more firmly. They are supposed to be working for fair racing between drivers not to allow the corporate forces of the big teams to dictate the race.

      I hope that the FIA in the coming days do at least dock ferrari some of its points either constructors or drivers to send the point that they will not stand for race fixing or blatant team orders. Beacuse as it stands, I cant help but think that The more the money, the more the red, the more the FIA will look away as race fixing,rule bending and unsportsmanlike conduct occurs.

    122. Fines are nothing to Ferrari. The only valid way to punish them is to take away constructors’ and Alonso’s points of this race.
      Indeed, Alonso is faster than massa, the fair way to show this is Alonso braking late to pass massa, instead of massa lifting up the throttle on a straight.
      I think it is alonso’s idea initially to give this order. Everyone knows what he meant by “it is ridiculous” behind massa. Thts why Alonso must also be punished. Maybe disqualify him from the race. But this decision is pretty hard to make in the fia, coz mr todt is the president… A pretty sad day for f1…

    123. At the very least disqualify Alonso. But maybe Massa too – the threat of the team’s displeasure is no excuse.

    124. The worst thing isnt the team order, it’s victory robbery! Poor felippe, poor rob…

    125. The better option is let the result stand, and for the next 3 races they cannot score any points what so ever.

    126. Spy-gate,Crash-gate,now the team order gate all of these involves Alonso somewhere, what is with him?????

      1. He is the Deaaveeeiillll…

        Actually, no, obviously he’s not the Devil, so I hope Alonso fans don’t take offence please!

        The Devil could probably overtake on his own merit.

        1. That’s the point,if he attempted the overtaking move & they crashed or Massa crashed then it would have been OK.
          As in the press conference the question was asked that whether this was something to do with the fact that in Australia Alonso wanted the team to let Massa passed him as he was faster then Massa, one thing Alonso you should know if you are faster than your team mate in front you just overtake him on race track other then cry to the team for help.

    127. They need to send a strong message to everyone, but the fine and punishment can only be a strong as the rules that are written. I think from now on the code for “let him pass” will be “Filippe baby, you need to go into fuel saving mode” this of course will apply to all teams and drivers!

    128. There can be no doubt that team orders were ussed in this case, but what is more disturbing is that Ferrari will now expect Massa to lie at the WMSC hearing in order to protect themselves, and especially Alonso. How can they do this in good faith to a loyal employee?

      Team orders were banned for very, very good reasons and the breaking of them requires sanctions that must be enforced. If Alonso’s win is retained after the hearing then this year’s title will be tainted forever by a selfish and gutless decision by Ferrari. Sound familiar?

    129. Ferrari favor one driver over the other – based on current championship rank and race for title. McLaren and Redbull favor one driver over the other based on their rank in marketing and dollars made. I still loved ferrari for being honest in pursuing the title.

    130. I would have given a time penalty to Alonso and stripped Ferrari from the championship points, it was awful to see this specially on Massa’s accident anniversary.

    131. If anybody is really responsible for that illegal pass,
      it is Fernando Alonso.Not only was Alonso unable to pass Massa but he also complained that it was “ridiculus”.Then the team waited for some time for may be he could pass on his own and only after that the instruction was given to Massa.I’m not an Alonso hater but so far this season,that man has been pathetic with his overtaking skills.You can’t blame Massa at all for this.He just had no choice at all.

    132. rashid hasan
      26th July 2010, 8:39

      penalise alonso n ferrari. promote massa to 1st n the subsequent drivers follow suit. alonso is a parasite to the sport.

    133. I believe that the fans have been robbed of what could have been and exciting battle. This season we’ve seen both Red Bull and McLaren team mates racing each other. To me the WMSC/FIA should reinstate Massa as winner and Alonso back to second place – natural justice and ban Ferrari for at least one race for their intervention.

      There was absolutely no need for Ferrari to “manipulate” the result.

    134. “The team comes first”

      How many times have we heard this from Red Bull, McLaren, Force India, Ferrari, Lotus etc etc

      Don’t punish the drivers it is said, why should they be penalised. However, if you don’t punish the drivers then any punishment handed to the team is without weight, as the result ultimately will still stand. $100,000 fine is peanuts to Ferrari and perfectly worth it to have the result they wanted.

      “The team comes first” and the drivers are but a part of that team. Therefore the “Team” should be heavily penalised, and IMO the only correct punishment that will set a precident and prevent further occurances is to disqualify “the team” from this race.

      The final result therefore is a win for Vettel, with the McLaren brothers with him on the podium. Only that will send a clear enough message to Ferrari and all the other teams.

    135. However, “team orders” is an emotive subject, and one that is very difficult to police.

      e.g. Hamilton & Kovalainen, in most people’s books (mine included) a fair team order, but nevertheless a team order.

      e.g. Button & Hamilton, “hold station” is an often used team order, and again most think is fair, you can fight but whoever is ahead in the closing stages stays ahead. Again though, it is a team order.

      But, where the order is used to switch positions when the team were already in a 1-2 situation, and both drivers still mathematically able to challenge for the championship, that is extremely bad for the public image of the sport and should be punished accordingly.

    136. Ferrari, its just not cricket.

    137. What i’m really wondering, is how much to do with how things unraveled Massa had.

      Don’t get me wrong, i love Felippe and i was mad to see what was going on. Clause in a contract or not, it was a team order and Massa couldn’t be happy about it.
      My question is: how much impact on HOW the team order is carried out did the driver have?

      He could pose it as a standard driver vs driver fight and leave Alonso gap big enough to squeeze in. How very probable is it, that mad at the team, Massa decided to do it in so obvious way, “three gears same time”, to put them into trouble deliberately?

      If that was the case, kudos to you Felippe. They well deserved it.

    138. Just wanted to register disappointment at yesterdays race!

      F1 seems to be more about coniving and money making than sporting competition if results are decided by team bosses rather than actual racing.

      I know that people might say its a team sport and there are team orders whether people like it or not, but if teams arent going to stick to ALL the rules then what’s the point in pretending that it’s actual sporting competition rather than ‘sports entertainment’?

      EJ was on the radio earlier saying he doesnt think that Ferrari will be punished any further.

    139. I’m sorry to say this but after hearing Massa say that the reason for allowing Alonso to overtake him was due to tyre wear which was making him go slower but if that’s the case, why did he get the ‘fastest lap’ some 10 laps later??

      Ferrari should have all their constructors points removed & fined €100m as that is what happened to Mclaren when they got done for cheating a few years back under the same rule ‘article 151c of the International Sporting Code’ so lets see if the WMSC have the same gonads they had beck then!!!

      I’m also concerned that lots of people on here are saying Alonso never asked for team orders! Now how do you know what he asked for unless you were able to listen to all the radio chatter between him & his team, because as like the rest of us, we only listen to what is broadcast on the TV, which btw isn’t every communication between the teams & drivers, it’s only a small percentage….

      I believe both Alonso & Massa should be disqualified for their part & that the team members involved should also serve some sort of punishment for this transgression as it’ll only get worse if any of them are allowed to get away with breaking this rule!!!!

      1. The difference between this and Spygate, regardless of how far you think this incident brings the sport into disrepute, is that this only affects the result of one race. Spygate affected McLaren’s performance throughout 2007 and probably 2008 as well. A fine anywhere near the region of what McLaren got would be ludicrous.

    140. *groan* Here’s my tuppence worth: There is a clear pecking order at Ferrari with, obviously, FA at the top. Ferrari gave Massa the order to let FA pass and neither Massa nor Rob were happy with it. I think Smedley needs to watch out for his job after making such a public display of his unhappiness – I imagine at the very least there’ll be a private ticking-off for him. What did Massa do wrong? He followed what we all believe to be a team order. Is this such a bad thing? Is he more culpable than the team itself for, we presume, writing orders into his contract? To what degree is FA to blame? He surely knows the pecking order and made it clear that he wanted to pass Massa but without having to fight for the position. Is it his fault that the team ordered Massa to yield? My personal view is that team orders exist and that a clear, distasteful, order was given yesterday. If anyone should be punished for bringing the ‘sport’ into disrepute then it should be Ferrari themselves and not the drivers. But how to punish them? Disqualification from the race result seems fair to me although the rule book needs to be clarified/strengthened to avoid a repetition of this. How about no coded instructions allowed, instead all the drivers having a set of phrases that are common to all the teams?

      1. Dont get you, you think Massa wanted it in his contract that he is clear No.2 ??

    141. Ive heard some crazy opinions on here about who should get fined/docked points etc.. If you disect it all down theres lots of different ways of seing the situation and ways that you could punish ferrari/the drivers. I say keep it simple to deter them from doing the same in the future.

      Just disqualify both drivers from the race. Therfore no Drivers points for either and no constructor points.

      I dont think you can fully keep team orders out of the sport (esspecially when it comes to ferrari) but the teams have to be a lot more clever about it and have orders predetermined before the race if certain situations occur.

      1. Torg, totally agree with you! Keep it simple: no points for the team, nor for the drivers. End of story.

    142. Well, once again we see that Fernando Alonslow can only win by foul means. He is a ridiculous person who is totally devoid of credibility. Vettel’s incensed expression during the press conference as Alonslow was bumbling through his lies and excuses painted the real picture. Next time Massa is ahead I have no doubt that this will happen again, or perhaps a deliberately slow pitstop or perhaps Alonslow will just park up in Massa’s pit box like he did with Hamilton in 2007. He should hang his head in shame! His brattish behaviour at Mclaren which continues at Ferrari, his cheated victory in Singapore which he must have been party to and now this. He is making Spain a laughing stock. I find his sense of entitlement utterly bizarre and innapropriate. Why on earth does he feel that his team mate should pull over every time he’s shown a clean pair of heals? What an absolute baby, he should just put his foot down and duke it out on the track or he will forever be remembered as a spoilt child!! I say throw the book at them. Article 151c has been breached which if precedent is followed they should rightfully be thrown out of the championship and fined £100,000,000.00. The sheer arrogance of the entire team is utterly sickening. they must think we are all totally stupid to think they could pull the wool over our eyes. Domenicali, bare faced liar that he is should be an embarrassment to the Ferrari corporation but I bet he is revered all the more for this by that perverse organisation of cheaters! Ferrari would not know fair play if it ran them over in a race transporter!! I feel for all those race fans who aren’t wealthy enough for paddock passes. You know who I’m talking about, the real fans who fill the grandstands having saved long and hard to buy their tickets and who in my opinion deserve a refund after having been robbed of a bona fide race outcome. Maybe Montezemeslow had a bet on Alonslow to win?

      1. Yes because throwing Ferrari out of the championship would obviously be good for Formula 1!!! I think not.

        All this driver blaming is very boring to listen to. At the end of the day its the team that makes these decisions, not the drivers. And if in a situation where say Alonso does have a say in the outcome then surely this is still ferrari at fault for allowing him to dictate procedings! I dont personaly like Alonso and he whines way to much for my liking, but its not his doing!! If he asked to pass Massa then so be it, cant blame him for asking. It should be ferrari that takes the decsion not to allow it!!

        1. Well, third race on the row, and THIS driver, is in the middle of the controversy. How he behave, is really pathetic for this level of competition. And what is sad, he really don’t care for his teammate, pushing him out of truck, not once this year. And what is saddest, Ferrari don’t care. Poor Felipe.

    143. I think a 15 second penalty for each driver , and the team then also reducing it’s point count as a consequence would let everyone focus on this in future.

    144. bianchiamaranto
      26th July 2010, 11:29

      Massa didn’t do anything wrong, he was conserving fuel and he was struggling on the harder compound. Alonso was on a fast pace at the time and Massa was conserving fuel, he would have pushed when he was ready. It wasn’t a team order, if it was a team order Smedley would have said: “Let Alonso through.” He didn’t say anything like that! He just said: “Fernando is going faster than you, can you confirm?” and Massa just let him through. He didn’t tell him to pass. To be fined is bias, if we get banned or docked points the sport has pretty much lost the plot. Lewis Hamilton on the other hand cheated by passing the safety car, did he get a massive fine? No, they let him off lightly with a drive through 20 minutes after the safety car. The stewards should be ashamed of themselves.

      1. Ahh, well it’s good to see the Ferrari propaganda machine has managed to convince at least one person.

        How Smedley’s slow, deliberate message could be taken to mean anything other than ‘let Alonso past’ is beyond me. It was obvious to me from his tone of voice he was being pressurised from the management to act in Alonso’s favour. In doing so his words and Massa’s subsequent show of discontent by going to half throttle to let Alonso past of truly indicative of team orders.

        Whether or not the FIA decide to punish them, well I can see suspended race bans as a minimum.

      2. Matt Hubbert
        26th July 2010, 13:02

        I cant believe what i am reading!!

    145. Chris Goldsmith
      26th July 2010, 12:06

      It is sad that things like this happen as they do, but I think we should be encouraged that the FIA has decided to punish Ferrari in the first place. With everyone at Ferrari singing from the same song sheet, saying that it was totally Felipe’s decision, it would have been easy for the stewards to simply let it slide. Even a token fine (which I think is actually the maximum penalty available to them) sends out a message that you can’t simply make team orders and get away with it by effectively exploiting a loophole.

      I don’t agree that either driver should be punished. They drive the cars, they don’t give the orders. Responsibility for orders given by the team should always rest with the team, not with its drivers. Even if Alonso had been screaming from lap 1 very clearly that he wanted Massa to move over for him, it’s still the team which yeilded to his requests, and they should be the ones to accept responsibility for it. Alonso isn’t the team principle, and it’s not his decision to make.

      But I think what this also highlights is that the rules aren’t really practical in the way they are worded. There are so many decisions taken by a team over the course of the weekend which influence the outcome of the race. For instance, decisions with regards to fuel strategy, or pitstop timings. Plus, if we were to be realistic for a second, Massa and Alonso are teammates, and as such they should be supporting each other. The fact is that Alonso is fighting for the title, while Massa isn’t. Since they are teammates, why shouldn’t Massa help out Alonso? If it was the last race of the season, and a driver missed out on the championship because his teammate who was out of contention prevented him from gaining the points necessary, you’d say it was ridiculous and that he should have helped out his teammate. Why should that be the case at the end of the championship and not midway through?

      I don’t turn on my TV to watch an artificially influenced race, but I do appreciate the nature of the competition, and this has actually thrown the WDC wide open and made it a five horse race. Which is surely better for the sport than seeing Ferrari’s drivers take points off of one another?

      It’s easy to be annoyed at Alonso, as he can be petulent and can come across as unsporting. The same could be said of any number of ‘great’ drivers through the years who have employed questionable tactics to win championships. Unfortunately a highly competitive nature and a warm, pleasant personality seldom go hand in hand.

    146. What is sad, is Fellipe’s situation. He is not, some driver. He was charging for titles, when Fernando was nowhere, and yesterday race, has just shown, that he is not worse, in any way, than his mate. And the way, Ferrari decided to go, should be clear signal for him, to go away from that team, because he has nothing to do there, any more. This is not the place for driver with such a capacity like him. And other sad thing, Ferrari shown no respect for the sport, for fans and other competitors. Nothing has change. Yuck.

    147. No need to punish anyone. Let Ferrari keep the points they made, but allocate all other drivers with 7 points – the 7 points which were stolen by Alonso.

    148. Both drivers as well as the Ferrari team should be disqualified, i.e. no points for either driver nor any constructor points. Furthermore they should be banned from the next race as well. We have rules and they decided to brake them and they broke them for everyone to notice. An insult on every fans, teams and officials intelligence. They brought the sport into disrepute and that needs to be punished severely! Not one single team is bigger than this sport!!!

      1. Not banned, let them race just don’t allow them to score points.

      2. very well said.

    149. First off…. It was a boring race. Worst after Bahrain. But not because Ferrari won and the Team order. It was just bad.
      But it was clearly heard by the World, that the TO was given and executed. And the Rulebook says that TO’s are forbidden. So DQ Ferrari from the race. Drivers and Team. They knew it was coming. Rules are Rules. Otherwise they could just start putting parts on the cars wherever they want and test as much as they want.

      DQ and done. If it happens again… take all points away from the team.

    150. $100.000 fine for that joke? Luca must be laughing out loud now…

    151. Ferrari really make me sick!!! Cheaters! Alonso is an hypocrit, Massa has no backbone whatsoever… And I thought he was a good driver last season before the crash … Cheaters, they all should get no points and thats it: 0 points for Ferrari, 0 points for Alonso and 0 points for Massa…

    152. how true is this?

      Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has told Formula 1 fans that he has ‘no interest’ in the furore that has been caused by his outfit using team orders to help Fernando Alonso win the German Grand Prix.

      With Ferrari’s actions in covertly ordering Felipe Massa to sacrifice the lead for his team-mate still dominating F1 talk, di Montezemolo has backed the way his team acted.

      in other words we dont care what the fans want you can go suck eggs.
      hope they get done big time by the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

    153. $100,000 is to Ferrari like me or you getting fined 1p its such a minor fine they just should have said its a grey area and not bothered, Ferrari didnt actually say let him past so as to the letter of the rule it is not possible to prove any team orders, which means the team orders rule is not worth the French toilet roll its written on anyway.

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