It would be fairly silly for a driver who recently accused the FIA of "fixing" races to attempt to benefit from an actual fixed result, wouldn't it? Would it not also be foolish for a team which has been so critical of the new F1 teams because they cheapen the sport to then turn around and cheapen the sport through an obviously contrived result?
Yet here we are and in Germany Alonso and Ferrari have done just that.
Meanwhile, di Montezemolo has been trying to claim that the good of the team comes before the good of the driver, saying, "I simply reaffirm what I have always maintained...that if one races for Ferrari, then the interests of the team come before those of the individual." However, there is a pretty glaring reason why that claim doesn't wash. Ferrari's change in the order did not affect the number of points Ferrari scored in the manufacturers title chase, but it did affect the driver's standings. This sounds a lot more like a case of a driver giving up individual ambitions not for the team, but for another driver's individual ambitions.
Di Montezemolo went on to say, "These things have happened since the days of [Tazio] Nuvolari." To which I reply, "Well, great Luca. If nothing has changed since the beginning of the sport let's just go back to having grand prix chargers feature 4 liter supercharged V8s, skinny tires, and a primary crash survival strategy of 'oh dear lord please let me be thrown from the wreck'." My point here, if I have not been overt enough, is that times have changed in motorsport.
Of course, it is only natural that Ferrari are trying to do everything they can to get a driver in contention for the title. However, there are still more than 200 points to play for and, if Ferrari's upswing in form continues, then there will be six drivers gunning for wins every weekend. In that highly competitive environment, it seems harsh to take Massa out of the running now. Clearly, Ferrari are saying "Alonso is our #1, Massa will not win another race this year".
And yet, when pressed after the race, Stefano Domenicali denied such allegations. Stefano, please. I know that the principals will run their teams as they see fit, but do me a favor? Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. You have a #1 driver or you have a #2 driver, if you don't, then your highly polarizing move on Sunday in Hockenheim was even more foolish than it initially seemed. They couldn't possibly expect us to believe that Alonso will get anything other than the most preferential treatment from here on, could they? Then again, this is the team which still carries on about running three car teams, so all bets are off when it comes to common sense. Moving on...
One could make the argument that the "good of the sport" might be even more important for teams to uphold than the desire to win at all costs. On that subject, Mercedes GP CEO Nick Fry has said, "I think the teams have an absolute responsibility for the show. The show is what generates the fans; the fans are what generates the sponsors, and the sponsors generate sponsorship which allows us to run the teams. So they are the customers at the end of the day, and we have got to put on a good show." Fry has a great point here; Formula 1 is nothing without the diehard support of fans willing to drop serious currency to come and see the races. Of course, some fans are perfectly alright with the concept of winning at any cost but, judging by the outcry, there are plenty of fans who definitely do not appreciate such tactics.
If I had spent the money for a race day ticket at Hockenheim and was denied a great battle for the lead by a bit of team orders, I would definitely not be much of a Tifosi as I left the stands. As a fan of the racing rather than a fanboy of a particular driver or team, all I want to continue to love this sport is a knock-down-drag-out fight. That is exactly what Ferrari deprived the fans of and, I suspect, that is the primary source of the furore.
And what of Alonso? This is 2007 at Indianapolis all over again. In Indy, Alonso moaned over the radio that he was faster than Hamilton and should be let through; the team did not agree and Hamilton won. We've had Alonso being petulant on for the last three rounds and it's really getting quite tiresome at this point. What happened to the Alonso who, during his non-whining segments of 2007 was able to pull off this relentless drive to snatch the win from Massa in the closing stages at the Nurburgring. Or where has this Alonso gone who pulled off a stunning overtake of Schumacher around the outside of the hair-raising 130R at Suzuka in 2006. That Alonso didn't have to get on the radio and complain that he was faster than the car in front, he showed us in very plain and dramatic style.
In the end, that might be the most disappointing aspect of the whole debacle; hearing Alonso complain again on the radio. Here he says "THIS IS RIDICULOUS", surely meaning that he is soooo much faster than Massa that it is a gross injustice for him to languish behind. If he was so fast, why not just take the position like the racer he used to be. There are those who have no issues with Ferrari and Alonso's conduct, and there are those who will find it unforgivable.
As a relatively neutral fan who just enjoys the cars, circuits, teams, personalities, histories, etc of this great sport, it bothers me. It is not because I am a big Massa fan (although Massa winning the GP on the one year anniversary of his horrid Hungary accident would have been so utterly poetic), and not because I am a Ferrari hater. It is because I tune in on race weekends to see the best drivers in the fastest cars fight it out to the last lap.
In Hockenheim, the fans were robbed of a great battle for the win. Do I think Alonso could have passed Massa on merit? Quite possibly, and if he had, it would have been a hell of a race. As it stands, I continue to lose respect for Alonso every time he complains on the radio. His conduct really makes you appreciate some of the other drivers who are really no nonsense and just get their head down and get the best result they can.
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On The Flip-Side...
I think it's fair to assume that most people who follow F1 have selective memory, which is normal, most people do when it comes to a sport they follow so intently. Whilst in the above story, there are the notions of Fernando Alonso now being whiner because he doesn't race like he used, I'd retort that he is merely coming to the pack of what is normal behaviour from an F1 driver. It is the default setting of any driver when behind his team mate to jump on the radio and have a little quip about "hey, I'm faster, can you tell (insert second drivers name here) to slow down and let me go? kthx", we've seen this time and time again, and that's only in recent times when Team Radio has been made a public service. I would imagine that every driver worth his salt has at some point told the team he is faster than his team mate. So singling out Alonso in this regard is dubiously unfair.
Moreover than that of course is the fact that it's the smart thing to do. We saw with glowing obviousness what the result is when a team mate decides to take matters into his own hands at Turkey this year. We saw it at Germany where Fernando had a little bit of a glance at Felipe's sidepod at the haripin, only to have his front wing almost unceremoniously removed. There is good reason why team mates are told to avoid racing each other (despite what Christian Horner would have you believe) and that's because it better to make a tough call and where some hurt from the press and fans than it is to lose 40-odd points and possibly a championship.
In the end, people will make up their own mind about what they think. Some, like me, will simply accept it as part of the sport and move on. Like that chunk of Brussle Sprout in your vegies, it tastes bad and makes you cringe, but it's merely one part of what otherwise is a very satisfactory meal. Others will choose to harp on the fact, call Ferrari a pack of manipulative so and so's and lament how F1 used to be when drivers deliberately crashed into each other to win titles, rather than just politely asking to be let through. But the Ferrari bashing and negativity toward what was otherwise a great race for the championship really needs to abate, because firstly, every single team that has and will ever race in F1 has performed some level of "team orders" and to single Ferrari is a little silly. Sure it was for the lead, but really, it's like pointng out one guy for jumping the queue in a queue of queue-jumpers, merely because he was at the front. Secondly, it was great! Now five guys in contention for the title! Surely that's better than Felipe winning and still only having four guys in contention? There might be a mountain of points left to score, but assuming that Ferrari will win from now until Abu Dhabi is to ignore the first ten races of the season.
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