F1 Germany 2010

Ferrari was surprisingly fast and came very, very close to a Alonso-Massa one-two in the grid. Vettel spoiled the party, however, with a sensational qualifying lap that was only 0.002 seconds faster than Alonso. Webber blew his qualifying lap but still managed fourth on the grid, ahead of the Maclarens who were having difficulties.

Vettel's start was sloppy. He fixated on Alonso, almost forcing him into the wall, which allowed Massa to waltz into lead. Alonso held his line and kept his second place while Vettel fell back to third. Did I mention his start was very sloppy?

The race kind of settled down after the first lap, and it looked like an easy one-two finish for Ferrari, except that the wrong driver was going to win. Then Massa received message on his radio and a few turns later slowed down and Alonso passed to take the lead. Now, the message did not explicitly tell Massa to let Alonso pass, but the intent was clear. In other words, it was a team order that altered the out come of the race, which is clearly against the regulations.

I was miffed. We were deprived of seeing some interesting racing. If Alonso was indeed faster, he had more than enough laps to prove it and try to pass Massa. A win for Massa would have been particularly poignant as it was one year since his accident. The worst part was the team orders overshadowed Ferrari's wonderful race performance. Anyway, the stewards agreed that it was team orders and sanctioned Ferrari with a fine, although the result was allowed stand. It was all very ugly.