Photo: Scuderia Ferrari
The 2010 World came to Hockenheim with Lewis Hamilton on head, followed by Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. Fernando Alonso was fifth, 47 points of your excompañero, and, although at that time remote, theirs was the only choice for Ferrari to obtain the title, as Felipe Massa was 78 points out of the lead. The weekend German was solved with a double header by Fernando, but that was wrapped in a large dose of controversy… and so many other of hypocrisy.
In the classification, Alonso was just two thousandths of the pole position Sebastian Vettel, with Massa in third, nearly a half-second of the Spanish. The output was key for what was to come after. Fernando started better than Sebastian, and this pushed him towards the wall. Not earned him: the spaniard came out of the first corner ahead of German… but behind Massa, who had found with the straight way by the left side of the track.
The advantage of the brazilian never came to two seconds, and, after the tire change, Alonso began to approach. An attempt of overtaking at the hairpin, with a bent in the middle, resulted in a moment of danger that led to Fernando to qualify for radio the situation “ridiculous”. Lap after lap, Massa not conceding. Alonso came even to hang to after to regain ground and return to the trail of his partner to show his best pace, and it became obvious that Ferrari would have to make a decision to avoid greater evils.
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari
And it came to notice. “Felipe, Fernando is faster than you. Have you understood the message?”, communicated by radio, Rob Smedley to his driver on lap 47. Massa only took one lap to show that what he had done, but made clear its discontent when lifting the foot so blatant just at the exit of the hairpin to allow Alonso to advance.
With team orders banned, the deep clarity of the words of Smedley, attached to the apology that he asked Philip at the conclusion of the race, will ended up costing Ferrari a $ 100,000 fine and that the matter was sent to the World Council (where, finally, were not taken further measures). The team orders in the guise of warnings to save fuel were the order of the day, but to Ferrari and Alonso they showered the sticks, especially in the british press, who seemed to forget what had happened two years before in that same scenario (Heikki Kovalainen was left to go ostensible for Lewis Hamilton; clearly, in this case, the communication did not went on the air…).
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