Ferrari’s fate to be decided before the Italian Grand Prix
Ferrari will learn their full punishment for implementing team orders in the German Grand Prix last month on September 8th, days before their home race in Monza.
The team were fined $100,000 for telling Felipe Massa in a coded radio message to let Fernando Alonso through, which is against Article 39.1 of the 2010 Sporting Regulations, which states that: “team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited.”
Team orders were banned in 2002 after Ferrari told Rubens Barrichello, then driving for the Scuderia, to let Michael Schumacher through at the Austrian Grand Prix, even though Barrichello had been faster throughout the whole weekend and had led for the majority of the race.
In Germany, Massa’s race engineer Rob Smedley had the difficult task of telling his driver to move over and let Alonso past to win the race, saying: “Okay, so Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm you understood that message?” Shortly after the message, Massa slowed down to release Alonso, who went on to the win the race. Smedley said to Massa afterwards: “Good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry.”
Ferrari will appear before the World Motor Sport Council after the sport’s governing body, the FIA, passed on the case.
Ferrari defended their actions, and there is even a call for the ban on team orders to be lifted. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said it was “the clearest team order I've ever seen.”
FIA president Jean Todt will not chair the World Motor Sport Council, because he used to be team principal and the chief executive officer of Ferrari. Instead, Nick Craw, the FIA deputy president, will take up the responsibility.
Ferrari could have the race result taken away from them and even face expulsion from the world championship for this and the following season.
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