By Jay
July 30 2010

Ferrari's action at the German GP might have come under heavy criticism, but it seems there have been an unwritten pact between their drivers and the team on whom the team would support.

James Allen in his latest blog has said Ferrari had an arrangement of 3 seconds gap between drivers. Which means, if both drivers are one behind the other, the driver in front should keep a distance of more than 3 seconds to be allowed to keep the lead.

 

On race day at the German GP, Massa's engineer Rob Smedley was heard insisting Massa earlier to maintain the three second lead, which indicates that the team had such an arrangement in place and drivers along with their engineers were well aware of it.

 

Once the gap had increased to over three seconds, Alonso quickly put in faster laps to bring it down under three seconds, to stake his claim of being the fastest on track, and Felipe was not running away from him.

 

If the question of why Alonso didn't attack Massa to gain position arises here, then it seems Ferrari didn't want their drivers to take each other out in the process, like what happened to Red Bull in Turkey, but again none of them would also agree to be a no.2 driver and give up his lead, hence an arrangement would have been the best option for Ferrari in such conditions.

 

Thus, when Felipe couldn't increase the gap, Smedley had to inform Massa that 'Alonso is faster', and when Massa didn't slow down to give away the lead immediately on that lap, he again repeated the message on radio adding "Can you confirm you understood that message?" which gave away the clue to the world that team orders had come in to play.

 

Red Bull driver Mark Webber believes that Massa was given the chance to win, but was not fast enough, and hence the team was right in swapping places for Alonso to win.

 

"They gave Felipe a good opportunity to win the grand prix as well," Webber said.

 

"Obviously they had a decision in the team where the fastest guy in the team wins the race."

 

"His first stint at Hockenheim was incredible, a very good first stint."

 

"The second stint obviously just wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the positions being moved around because they wanted the faster guy to win the grand prix."

 

Regarding team orders, Webber said it is something which cannot be controlled and has been part and parcel of F1.

 

"[It's] very, very, very difficult to control team orders. They've been happening for 40 years in the sport and they'll happen in the future," he said.

 

"Obviously for the fans, you can understand it was a different thing, but it's happened so many times since 2002."

 

"For the victory it's a different thing, but the people who think it's the first time it's happened are absolutely dreaming. It's not the only time."

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