Ferrari managed to get their championship challenge firmly back on track, with the team being firmly the talk of the town after a perfect result. Once again, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

The incident being discussed needs no introduction – on lap 49, Felipe Massa sluggishly pulled out of the turn 6 hairpin, allowing Fernando Alonso to breeze on by. A lap before, race engineer Rob Smedley delivered a message simply stating: “OK, Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?” A simple code cracking can lead me to suggest he meant “OK, let Fernando past. Drinks are on Mr Domenicali tonight!” Smedley also had to be complemented for his sheer Britishness by delivering the message much slower and slightly louder than less important orders. You can tell these were the words of a man upset to have been given the soup having ordered a  crisp beer in a Sao Paulo bar.  Alonso went on to claim the win, and while Sebastian Vettel homed in on Massa, he wasn’t quite close enough to force any sort of challenge to the man who is clearly Ferrari’s number two driver.

The team obviously have previous convictions of team orders offences, with Rubens Barrichello famously pulling over on the last corner of the Austrian GP of 2002 to hand Michael Schumacher an undeserved extention to a championship lead that he was already dominating. This controversy led to the introduction of the Article 39.1 ruling in the FIA’s regulations, stating: “Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited.” But despite it appearing to be forbidden, the FIA only handed out a $100,000 fine when disqualification was easily justifiable. Ferrari have moaned about poor treatment from the stewards after being robbed of points in the last two races, but can consider themselves incredibly lucky to be hit with a fine that won’t even cover the drinks bill if Alonso takes the title with less than seven points to spare.

That said, the team made up for the incident with some cringe worthy statements immediately after the race which provided endless entertainement, stating that Massa had made a mistake and that there were no team orders in place. Red Bull’s Christian Horner, presumably looking for some positive PR after pulling a similar move in principle at the British GP, even waded in by saying that Red Bull would never pull that sort of move. And he was lying through his teeth.

Even if Massa had won the race, he would only have been lifted up to seventh in the drivers title, lying 65 points adrift of the Mclaren’s Lewis Hamilton with over half of the races completed this season. With Alonso taking the extra seven point bonanza, he’s now 34 points adrift of the Brit, with a seemingly much faster car; throw in the fact that in spite of Massa’s impressive showing, he has dominated the Brazilian this season, and it’s not inconceivable that he could be right in the championship hunt by the end of the season. He’s certainly not among the favourites for the title, but it’s not mathematically impossible. Ultimately it’s a loss for three groups of people: Massa, who it appears could have held on to take a deserved race win, the fans, who were denied the chance to see a battle between two talented teammates for the lead (compare this to the titanic duels that shaped a brilliant Turkish GP), and the romantics, who would have seen Massa take his first win exactly a year to the day when he effectively had a bullet through his helmet.

It’s also a pity for Ferrari, with their most positive and memorable weekend of the season being remembered entirely for negative actions. Team orders in F1 is nothing new – remember that Kimi Raikkonen’s 2007 F1 title victory at Brazil involved Massa pitting to switch the drivers positions, with no-one batting an eyelid at a move that was considered logical. But for Massa and Alonso to duel down to the hairpin, only for the motor race to be won by a tag-team move, it is only seems right that for fans to feel that a sour taste has been left in their mouths. The fact is that once again we’re talking about Ferrari handing over a win – which means we’re once again talking about Ferrari winning. Look out world.

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