Ferrari F1 Team Orders
We all know this story, at the 2010 Hockenheim Grand Prix, Felipe Massa lead from his teammate Fernando Alonso. Radio messages went to Massa on a regular basis about Alonso being quicker and catching him. I originally wrote this just a few days before the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa.
Then, on lap 49, as Alonso cruised up to the back of Massa, there was a message from Massa’s race engineer, Rob Smedley saying “...Alonso is faster than you, can you confirm you understand this message?” At the time, I imagine everyone watching the race and listening to that must have wondered, like I did, what on earth THAT was supposed to mean.
At the next corner, Massa is slow out of the corner and Alonso steams past.
Smedley then gets on the radio and delivers the message “Good lad — just stick with it now, sorry”. Now before I throw my two pence into the mix let me be clear I’m not a Ferrari fan. I find Ferrari as a team and company rather arrogant, and this travesty just shows an example of my reasoning. Who did Ferrari really think they were going to fool?
ALL the radio traffic from ALL of the teams is broadcast and can be heard by the stewards and the TV crews. And the build up to it, the constant information about how far behind Alonso was gives away Ferrari’s intentions in the event Alonso caught his teammate.
Secondly the engine telemetry, again broadcast so everyone can look at it CLEARLY shows Massa at half throttle from the corner apex till Alonso has swept past before getting on full throttle, not making a mess of his exit, just on a steady half throttle making early change-ups.
And then, most annoyingly to me, the Ferrari team principle, Stefano Domenicali has the gall to make Massa’s engineer deliver the message. I’ve not spent any time in an F1 garage or any race team garage but even I realise that a drivers’ pit team, the mechanics, their guys on the pit wall and all the other guys in the drivers’ garage will race every inch of the track with their driver and I felt just as sorry for Rob Smedley as I did Massa.
The other thing to remember was on race day for Hockenheim, was exactly a year to the day that Massa suffered his horrific injuries and the Hungaroring.
If Domenicali wanted to tell Massa to shove over then he should get on the radio and do it himself, not hide behind Smedley. It’s not only unsporting, unfair and down right harsh, it’s cowardly!
To make it worse, Ferrari have made yet more guarded remarks about how team orders are a good thing!!?
Now hang on a moment. Ok, I’m sure some teams have it written in contracts that one driver is considered the ‘Senior’ driver or will receive favour during a season in terms of parts and upgrades to maximise the teams championship potential and while I don’t totally subscribe to that mentality, I can see why that might be the case, particularly in teams where the ‘No 2’ seat is handed to a rookie driver, but at Hockenheim, Ferrari knowingly and intentionally manipulated the race order to influence the race result to favour their championship standings. In laments terms, they cheated and they bloody well know it!
And lets remember that this isn’t the first time Ferrari have done this. Anyone remember Austria 2002? Barrichello is forced to move over to allow Schumacher to win.
The problem for Schumacher then and Alonso in 2010 is the fact they did nothing wrong, they didn’t ask for their teammate to be ordered to move over, and yet they get demonised.
Again, I’d like to point out I dislike Alonso. He expects to be given preferential treatment no matter how well his teammate is driving or how poorly his own efforts have been, but I felt sorry for Alonso, as a racing driver he would have wanted to pass Massa on his own merits, proving his ‘No 1’ status and because this whole ‘PassGate’ saga if you will, is seen as Alonso’s fault.
The thing that makes me laugh, is not only how poorly Ferrari disguised the messages, it’s the fact the rule they broke, Article 39.1 is so clear and simple. It states “Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited.”
And that is literally it, those 10 words. You can’t argue the rule is confusing or misleading, because it simply says the team manager can’t cheat. And yet Ferrari still did it.
Thankfully my rant is only for the sake of ranting. The stewards are not stupid and have punished Ferrari and referred them to the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) for a hearing on potential further punishment, although at the time of writing, that is still to happen, set for the 8th September 2010.
But the debate is what extra punishment should Ferrari get?
Some suggest Ferrari should be thrown out of the Championship, others say nothing should happen.
My opinion is that the WMSC should be consistent and measured. In 2007, the WMSC threw McLaren out of that years Constructors Championship because their car had Ferrari technical information and data available during its development.
So based on this, and the fact in both occurrences the evidence is clear, I feel the WMSC should strip Ferrari of the points it gained for the Constructors Championship.
Why this punishment specifically? Well the drivers didn’t influence or make these decisions, it was the team management, and so it would be slightly unfair to punish the drivers, exactly the same punishment that the WMSC imposed on McLaren in 2007, punishing the team for the team cheating, not the drivers who were innocent of involvement.
My final gripe is, as it always is, with Bernie Ecclestone. Particularly his suggestion that this rule should be abolished and team orders are ok.
I consider Ecclestone to be a blood sucking vampire who has been raping F1 of all it’s status and heritage for a long time, and now he has basically suggested that its ok for teams to cheat by forcing drivers to swap places and so cheating PAYING fans out of proper racing, something F1 is only just rediscovering.
I have faith that the WMSC will reach the right decision. Recent history shows that It can reach the right conclusions and can issue punishments that fit the crime. My next hope is that the FIA keeps Article 39.1 and reaffirms its commitment to the abolition of cheating and unsporting behavior.
Ferrari F1 Team Orders - Aftermath
The Italian Grand Prix has finished about an hour or two ago at the time of writing, and Formula 1 continues to impress me endlessly on-track. The racing is exciting, drivers will happily go wheel-to-wheel and accept responsibility for their own mistakes.
With Hamilton crashing out, Webber and Vettel struggling to get big points, Ferrari moved their drivers into a better position with a win for Alonso and third for Massa, with Button doing himself a few favours also with second place.
A few days before, the WMSC met to decide the fate of Ferrari’s Hockenheim win. The attitude, body language and telemetry all showed clearly that Ferrari were issuing veiled instructions to Massa to let Alonso past to go on and win the race.
Now I have no issue with Ferrari favouring Alonso in the championship, he has the superior points to Massa and seems to be a better championship prospect. So I’d expect new parts to be earmarked for Alonso before Massa, Pit-stops being timed to favour Alonso, etc. But manipulating the race result with blatant team orders breaks two very clear, very simple rules.
The fans, media, and most importantly, the Stewards were not fooled.
Now in the first part of this blog a few weeks ago I said I hoped the WMSC wouldn’t be fooled either and would issue a fair and measured punishment. I said
“I have faith that the WMSC will reach the right decision. Recent history shows that It can reach the right conclusions and can issue punishments that fit the crime. My next hope is that the FIA keeps Article 39.1 and reaffirms its commitment to the abolition of cheating and unsporting behavior.”
And yet, on Wednesday afternoon, we heard the WMSC were going to take no further action against Ferrari because the rule was unenforceable.
Now I can see the point, but then they should have overturned the Stewards decision. But they didn’t, they upheld it, so I’m going to have a rant!
My anger is not that they feel the rule is difficult to enforce, I agree totally that proving a team has enforced illegal team orders is rather difficult, and my anger isn’t even that because of this, the WMSC decided not to punish Ferrari further.
No my anger is the fact that the WMSC didn’t overturn the Stewards decision. Either Ferrari did cheat and break the rules and should be punished, or they didn’t. They can’t have broken the rules and not get punished.
My anger is that they have been inconsistent, the one thing I begged them not to be. And then all it does is set the precedent for any team to blatantly enforce team orders and simply turn around and say “Prove it!”, safe in the knowledge the WMSC can’t.
The excuse that the rule is unclear is absolute rubbish! The rule is 10 words long and, if Ferrari didn’t order Massa to move, then they made it clear they wanted Massa to move over and so either way were attempting to manipulate the race result, which can be proved and does break a rule within the sporting regulations and so Ferrari would need to be punished, either that or Massa for breaking that rule.
I like Massa, and I felt horrid for him, a year to the day after his Hungary accident. But if the option is he get punished or reveal the truth? Self-preservation could win out.
Either way I’m angry at the WMSC for wimping out and letting cheating go unpunished, be it Ferrari or McLaren or Lotus, a cheat is a cheat and cheating must NEVER be tolerated within any sport.
It means all the efforts of this season to restore the reputation of the sport have been damaged because of this scandal.
MD
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