Lap 49: Massa's race engineer Rob Smedley told him over the radio:"ok...so...Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?...."
Felipe Massa:"........."
A lap later Fernando Alonso accelerated and overtook his team-mate who safely left the track clear for the pass.
Massa had almost secured the victory of the German Grand Prix after overtaking both Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso at he start of the race, but the Brazilian was ordered to move aside and let Alonso pass with 18 laps remaining as team orders were for one more time against the Brazilian ace.
Stefano Domenicalli tried to resolve a potential conflict between the 2 drivers and avoided an accident similar to the one of RedBulls in Turkey. Fernando Alonso was the great winner of the summer claiming his second win after season's inaugural race in Bahrain where he dominated again against his team-mate. And for one more time like in Austria in 2002 Ferrari's No1 driver has dominated over his Brazilian team-mate. However this time, there was no clear indication about team orders but the outcome of the race clarified once forever Ferrari's drivers classification to No1 as the championship contender and No2 who has a supportive role in the Italian squad
Although Alonso was quicker than Massa in the second half of the race, the Brazilian has been clearly disappointed by the incident, even more than Webber's reaction in the Santander British Grand Prix. No2's fate in an F1 team can be very painful, indeed!
"Well, I don't think I need to say anything about that. The only thing I feel is that we work for the team and doing a great job for the team and that is the most important thing."
When asked if he felt he deserved to win, Massa's answer was emphatic.
"Well, I think so. The start was just fantastic and also the pace on the soft tyres was really great and then I was struggling a little bit on the hard tyres but anyway a very good race for us."
After the race Ferrari's team principal and team manager have been summoned by the stewards after they appeared to implement team orders at the German Grand Prix.
Team orders are banned under the regulations when then Ferrari Team manager Jean Todt ordered Rubens Barrichello to slow down his pace so that Michael Schumacher would overtake him and win the Austrian Grand Prix in 2002.
The outcome of FIA's stewards verdict will be announced soon as the leading figure of Austria's 2002 scandal, Jean Todt is currently FIA's president.
Red Bull's Christian Horner, told that the FIA stewards should actually be probing Ferrari's alleged rules breach.
"That was the clearest team order I've ever seen. As clear as 2002.".
Ex F1 team owner Eddie Jordan commented for BBC: "The difference with 2002 was that there was no rule (about team orders) then....This is 10 times worse."
Controversial Fernando Alonso, who has been involved in the majority of F1 scandals within the latest years (stepneygate, crashgate etc) commented:
"We tried to do our race, we tried to do as good as we can. We are professional drivers and we try to work as a team and we try to do the best we can every day not only here on the track but in the race and factory, preparing the races. Again I think we have been doing a good job in the last couple of races, finally we got a strong Sunday with a strong result. I think we are happy with this, all the other things it is more for you if you want to write all these things."
As a remark, it is obvious that Alonso is happy being in a friendly co-operative environment only when he is able to take full advantage of it. Fair F1 winners are so rare anymore in F1.
While Ferraris where battling for the victory, Vettel in 3rd could never threat their domination, but maintained his championship challenge by finishing ahead of the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. The British pair ran most of the race nose-to-tail but Button never got close enough, despite Hamilton being told to save fuel from very early in the race.
British Grand Prix winner Mark Webber was sixth after a bad start saw him passed by Hamilton on the first lap. Button then passed the Red Bull in the pit stops after the McLaren driver decided to stay out longer on the soft tyres than any of the front runners and briefly led the race. Webber was prevented from posing a fight back as he was ordered to back off due to excessive oil consumption.
All the other cars finished a lap down with Robert Kubica in the Renault seventh ahead of the two Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher. The second Renault of Vitaly Petrov claimed the final point on offer in tenth.
Race's result means that Lewis Hamilton still leads the championship from team-mate Jenson Button, the Red Bull duo tied for third but Alonso 5th is starting to threat their lead.
