Massa demoted to help Alonso.....

 

Can't Alonso win on his own merits ?

 

Answers on a postcard !

I'd be surprised if Red Bull pulled the same stunt to counter, Vettel has the moral high ground now without question

One of the reasons I don't like F1

That's the trouble with permitting team orders these days

F1 has always been a team sport. Alonso has completely changed my opinion of him since he threw his toys out of the pram at McClaren and waltzed off. He's wrestled an uncompetitive car this season to within a gnats of a championship - he'd have been long gone in the fizzy drinks mobile. Now Ferrari (who I don't much like) are in F1 to win. If you were the boss of two people would you be "fair" to your acknowledged number 2 or do anything legal to keep your No 1 in the hunt? Of course you would. Well done to them for a cheeky use of the rules. Better than the flexible wing and rotating wing cheat used by *ahem* you know who.

Yep, it's a team sport and perfectly acceptable way of exploiting the rules as they are written from my perspective.

If ferrari had just played it down and said 'We identified a minor problem with Massa's car prior to the race and had no option but to rectify it' then yes, but to openly admit to it as a team tactic leaves a bitter after taste and had Alonso won in the US it would have taken some of the shine off the victory as far as I'm concerned. Ferrari's decision had an impact on the entire field behind them which was out of order

If ferrari had just played it down and said 'We identified a minor problem with Massa's car prior to the race and had no option but to rectify it' then yes, but to openly admit to it as a team tactic leaves a bitter after taste and had Alonso won in the US it would have taken some of the shine off the victory as far as I'm concerned. Ferrari's decision had an impact on the entire field behind them which was out of order

 

That's the point I was making to start with..... Ferrari International Assistance strike again and F*** everyone else. Just a shame Renault can't make s decent alternator other wise Alonso would've stayed 4th where got to at the first corner.

 

But well done to Hamilton, whether you like him or not, it was a brilliant drive by him and a worthy winner.

i think team orders should be banned, its race fixing in my eyes, if a man has two horses in one race and backs the one with the best odds and makes the other slow down then its race fixing and is illegal, if a goal keeper is paid to let in goals then that is match fixing and illegal, they could sway the outcome of the championship by doing things like this, people will have placed bets on the outcome of the championship

 

i know cheating goes on in all kinds of sport but to do it blatantly is a disgrace, ive gone off watching the F1 due to ferrari and the witch hunt for hamilton

. Ferrari International Assistance strike again and F*** everyone else.

Apart from the fact that Ferrari's ploy was (this time) nothing to do with the FIA, if you were holding the can for the team performance, what would you have done? Be nice to your competitors or do everything you can to maximise your No 1 driver's chances (remember the no 2 was not in contention for the championship at this time.)? Use the rules and f*** the rest is exactly the attitude a team leader should have.

 

And yes, team orders are race fixing. But the point is F1 is a team sport not an individual driver sport. The competitors are the teams for which the drivers, er, drive. The entrants to the competition are the constructors.

 

Being clever enough to use the rules to your advantage is not cheating. Unlike making your front wing flex but designing it so it's stiff in the tests - that's cheating (clever, but cheating).

Being clever enough to use the rules to your advantage is not cheating. Unlike making your front wing flex but designing it so it's stiff in the tests - that's cheating (clever, but cheating).

 

Cheating or simply ensuring that your equipment meets the test criteria ? The rule book and the people who interpret it are simply in an arms race. Were it not for that careful extrapolation of the rules Brawn and hence Button would not have won a couple of years back. The teams who win are generally the ones who have the best engineers who work out a way of gaining the most advantage from the rule book. Adrian Newey just happens to be the star pupil ...

Cheating or simply ensuring that your equipment meets the test criteria ?

Now that's an intelligent point. The FIA clearly think the latter (otherwise they would have sanctioned someone). But to me, there is a difference between exploiting the rule book to the dot and comma (which I think Ferrari did in this instance and Brawn did with the double DRS and Vodafone with the F-duct) and the wing thing. The wing thing exploited a badly designed test (not rigorous enough) which did not fully test that the wing was not flexible under race conditions - which was what the rule was for. Certainly it flouted the spirit of the regs and somewhere there is a comment that the rules must be read in spirit as well as letter. But I can't find it and the FIA think I'm wrong anyway :D