Spaniard Fernando Alonso led Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa to a one-two victory in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim yesterday, but the race’s denouement was shrouded in controversy as Massa was in front of Alonso until a call from Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali saw Massa hand the lead to Alonso.
Ferrari chief engineer Rob Smedley said to Massa on the team radio: “Alonso is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?”
With 18 laps remaining, the Brazilian gave way to his teammate.
Following the controversial move, Smedley added: “Good lad — just stick with it now, sorry.”
Asked to comment on the call afterwards, Massa, who was denied a potential win a year to the day after he fractured his skull in the Hungarian Grand Prix, said simply: “I don’t need to say anything about that. He passed me.”
Alonso preferred to dwell on the strong team showing.
“Sometimes you are quick, sometimes you are slow,” he said. “It’s a very strong result for the team. I think it was a good weekend overall, we improved the car a lot. We performed very well.”
Ferrari led from start to finish as both Massa and Alonso passed pole-sitter German Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull in an exciting start at the Hockenheimring.
Vettel, 23, who has still to win a race after starting in pole position, finished in third place ahead of McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button of Britain.
Australian Mark Webber was sixth in the second Red Bull, ahead of Pole Robert Kubica of Renault.
Mercedes drivers and fellow Germans Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher were eighth and ninth respectively, followed by Russian Vitaly Petrov in the second Renault, who was 10th.
Meanwhile, Katja Heim, a spokeswoman for the organizers, said the eurozone crisis had a big impact on ticket sales and purchasing habits, as well as Schumacher’s disappointing performances.
“When it was announced that Michael was coming back, there was a huge jump in ticket sales, but in a very odd way then it dropped,” she said. “It dropped ... [because] of that recession talk with Greece.”
Heim expected 66,000 grandstand seats to have sold on race day, better than in 2008, but still little more than half the turnout at the British Grand Prix two weeks ago.
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