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It worked like a charm and Massa ended up showing fantastic race pace. Not only he took 16 laps to get to 6th place but he also ended in 4th only 10 seconds adrift from Fernando, showing he would´ve achieved a comfortable podium today.

That must´ve been one of the boldest team strategies I´ve ever seen. It paid off well and Massa did well knowing what his place was and raced like no other today. Him and Hamilton were the drivers of the day for me.

However, was it a good thing to do? How many times can we see such thing happening again?

I wouldn't say he would have got a podium, god knows how many places he would have lost off the start from the dirty side.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Like martin brundle said, don't think ferrari had any other option in order to keep the championship alive and I think any other team would have done the same under the same circumstances. Don't think it'll ever happen again though seeing as this GP was a one off with the brand new tarmac, massa outqualified alonso, etc.

Great gamble. SD explained it was in the team's best interest (guessing had already resigned losing the WCC), the drivers understood and he wanted to be honest about why they did what they did.

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"We can not drive slower, just to make the races more exciting." Alain Prost

Well in terms of helping Alonso it is perfectly legal. Domenicalli said that nobody complains when a driver takes a strategic retirement. But for Massa I'm impressed with his pace, he would have been able to catch Alonso if he didn't have the penalty, but then again we don't know how his pace would have been in his original starting spot (if he got caught in traffic, etc.).

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Supporter of:

Fernando Alonso
Pastor Maldonado
Sergio Perez
Michael Schumacher
Lewis Hamilton

I think FIA needs to address the misuse of laws for other purposes than stated in rules. It wasn't brake of the rule, but was neither done in the letter of the rule that follows the function and purpose of the rule. They clearly gained advantage by misuse of the rule.

It was not done in the spirit of the sportsmanship.

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The end is near

The 10-second gap is very misleading. I doubt Alonso was on the limit once 3rd place was secured.

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Are we talking engine/torque(?) mapping here?

What Ferrari did was not great but it's what they had to do. The had MUCH slower car than Macca and RBR, they just need to maximize every possible thing, to keep themselves in the fight.

It was a clever tactic, but a little dirty IMO.

Hello, Daniel! I hadn't seen you around for a while, how are things?

Yes, the strategy worked very well for Ferrari today, but it was a risky bet. Not sure if FIA will take any steps to prevent something like that from happening in the future or will let it go - if they do change the rules, let's just hope that they get it right and don't leave any other loopholes. Having said that, the story of recent years seems to be one of "let's see who finds the most loopholes in the rules" and FIA has not been that effective at closing them...

a lame way to gain an advantage, and anybody who says that massa really had a problem is deluded

Neither was all Red Bull's chea...rule-bending this season. Goodness only knows how much 'advantage' they gained by misuse of the various rules.

FIA needs to employ better legislators.

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We want heroes, but there are few, mainly it's cars - Pedro De La Rosa

I see some people say that sportsmanship is not anymore that important.

Than we can forget about noble example of Sir Sterling Moss, and how he pleaded with stewards to do exactly what has taken from him the championship back in 50's. What a difference 50 years can make in human perception of morality.

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The end is near

Fair play by Ferrari.

The real issue is that the FIA should do more to ensure equal oppurtunities for drivers starting on both sides of the grid, to avoid this situation happening and giving the chance for team orders to be beneficial in the first place. Washing both sides of the grid pre race evenly, to remove both dust/dirt/oil seep from the dirty side AND any rubber laid down on the clean side might be a good option.

Please, don't tell me that you just heard sportsmanship is not paramount these days. With teams like Ferrari, Renault, Red Bull, this word is long gone in F1.

To me a better option would be stop having Formula as the first weekend. Make them hold a years worth of events to rubber in and remove the oils from the tarmac.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Of course, my guess is that sometimes that's just not possible for financial reasons. New tracks get built just in time for a reason, because the investment required to build them is usually provided at the best rates when it can start to be paid off immediately.

At least Ferrari were honest about why they'd done it.

They could have claimed they'd discovered that Massa's gearbox was likely to fail during the race and required changing, co-incidentally bumping Alonso onto the clean side of the grid.

I wonder if they'd have taken the penalty had Button's throttle not failed in Q2.

I was thinking the reason was Bernies wallet.

Remember a lot of tracks don't make money from F1.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

I think that I have right to expect sportsmanship in sport. Else, it is not sport anymore. Than, indicate me some other term for F1.

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The end is near

I remember a thread (maybe in the old forum?) about the differences among cheating, exploiting a loophole and clever engineering. Today we've seen a clear case of exploiting a loophole. Probably not the most sportive action, but legal according to the letter of the rules.

That said, I don't think it was as bad as Jean-Éric Verge letting Vettel through at Abu-Dhabi, which IMO stands for the most unsportive action of the year. And remember that Vettel overtook Button in the last couple of laps, maybe he wouldn't have caught him if it wasn't for this move.

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

A business.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

did the OP see this 2 threads down?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5163

I got no issue with the decision, is a team sport as well.

Also that alonso pointed out this goes on more than we think except normally teams cover it up.

I don't have any issue with it. It was logical and worked.

Well demoting Massa also moved him onto the clean side of the grid as well, which probably helped a little, but it was not the most... sporting of gestures. But also not outside the rules. The saying "All's fair in love and war" springs to mind.

Fair play to Massa for showing excellent pace though, he raced really well. I think he's outclassed Alonso this weekend.

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The two most powerful warriors are patience and time…so remember: great achievements take time, there is no overnight success.

yeah but he lost 5places b4 race even started!!!he wudnt lost 5 startin from dirty side not a tactic just helpin fernando they didnt care where massa gonna finish

You still class Formula 1 as a sport? You're behind the times my friend. This is way too political to be classed as a sport.

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Forza Fernando !

First up, Fair play to Ferrari for fronting up and not making excuses. They could easily have said Masa had a problem, then anything else would be speculation.

Second, had any other team been in that place, there would have been something amiss if they had not done it. Look at Hornres reaction when Hill asked him. Hr did not say 'yes we would' but he may as well have.

Third, I'm sure Ferrari and Alonso would have preferred to have started where they were, is it fair that the track gives an advantage?

I know this is going to run and run, but they broke no rules and the only car that was disadvantaged was a Ferrari. Those behind him moved up a place.
It is in the same category as pitting on the second lap for different tyres or starting from the pit lane (and I dont just mean Red Bull here)

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I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

Marx (Groucho)

Unsporting? Probably, but I'm happy that Ferrari didn't bullshit around it and just said what they did.

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"Where are all the good men dead, in the heart or in the head?"

Give 'em hell Dani!

British Driver Supporter (and Daniel Ricciardo)

He maybe wouldn't have lost places. But say he gained 4 from his side and the average was losing 4 from the dirty side. Well he ended up quids in.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Hello Morgana. I´ve been a-lurking more than posting these days. Good to ´see´ you.

About the subject, I think people are forgetting someting fundamentally problematic related to Ferrari's decision.

As soon as they changed Massa's place on purpose, they automatically damaged the start strategy of everyone who was immediately behind Massa.

So, the implications of such a demotion are huge to everyone else. Just look at the start's replay to see how shitty was the start for even-grid positioned drivers such as Kimi, Grosjean and the like.

For that reason alone, I think such moves should be forbidden, meaning a team have to actually prove that their car modification is actually due to a car failure of some sort.

Anyway, maybe they weren't pissed because of Grosjean's demotion, since after Massa's demotion, almost everyone went back to the original side of the track they were supposed to be before Grosjean's demotion, but anyway, it's controversial because it changes people's race who doesn't have anything to do with it.

Well it took Alonso only one corner to get to 4th place.

As said in other post, we don't know if Alonso (who obviously had no chance to catch the leading duo) was saving his engine and tyres.

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I'm a racing driver. Always was, always will be.

I think the FIA should let the drivers starting from the 2nd place have an option to swap the starting grid with the 3rd, and the 4th with the 5th, etc.

Yeah but during the first stint Massa was much faster than Alonso. He brought a 15s+ gap down to 5 before Alonso pitted.

Bottom line is, it worked. Kudos for not even attempting to bullshit about why they were doing it either.

Cant say im impressed but im not suprised either, wonder what the RB fans would be saying if a TR took a new gearbox to bump Vettel/Webber onto the better side of the grid? I think i'd find that a little harder to stomach.

Well Red Bull have done plenty of "unsporting" stuff with their use of STR.

Some people just don't seem to realize what goes on during car design in F1. If they did they would never bother to utter "sportsmanship" in F1. Its all about legality.

As for the outcome, the tactic has clearly worked. Alonso got as high up as possible and actually so did Massa. But even if it didn't work Ferrari had to try it. Every point is precious for the WDC.

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Not sure if their first instinct was to be honest about it. The first story I saw was this one on Autosport..



Maybe they quickly realized that no one believed them.

well at least we don't have to go through the pretence of trying to call it a sport anymore.

It was cheating, of course. Manipulating the rules to your advantage, going against the spirit of the rules. Grid penalties are supposed to hurt the team, not help it.

I've seen Ferrari do it countless times and they always get away with it because the FIA is too scared to do something about it, maybe they're afraid of Ferrari's "breakaway series"...

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"Mark, Vettel is faster than you"
"Yeah but I'm in front mate"

So what's the difference between starting from the pitlane with different gear ratios than starting last from the grid with a compromised qualy-race transmision? If you're a backmarker qualified 24th you might want to switch to different gear ratios more race-efficient despite starting from the pitlane...

It seems some rules can be used against the spirit of the sport, Vettel got a penalty in Abu Dabhi and still he could somehow benefit from it.

Circus.