Formula One: Felipe Massa “pushed” to be more helpful
The message for the Ferrari deriver, Felipe Massa, all through the season had been ‘help your teammate.’ His teammate, Fernando Alonso shows a great form and spirit now. In the last few rounds he has become one of the strongest contenders for the 2010 World
Championship. At this stage of the season when everyone in the team is bucking him up, Massa is being pushed to do all he can for his teammate’s and team’s success.
Luca di Montezemolo, the team boss of Ferrari has given a very straight message to Massa urging him to push harder to make Alonso's position more strong for the drivers' title.
Alonso has demonstrated a great pace and form in Singapore last week. Having bagged this victory, he has moved up to second place in the Drivers’ Championship sliding Lewis Hamilton of McLaren down to third, thus further cementing his place in the championship
contention.
Now, as the team is doing its best to ensure the Spaniard’s victory it has demanded further support and cooperation from Massa, although the driver is already doing this.
The German Grand Prix, which actually brought the team back into lime light, witnessed the ‘cooperation’ of Massa evidently. As the two drivers were heading for a one-two finish for the team, while Massa was leading, he received a radio message saying,
"OK. So Fernando is faster than you. Do you understand that message?" Following this, Massa slowed down presenting his victory to Alonso.
Now as the Formula One caravan moves to the sixteen race of the season to be held in Japan, next week the team once again gave a clear message to its team member. The team boss very lucidly stated, "In Singapore he had some bad luck, but he is in good condition
to win. Those who race for Ferrari don't race for themselves, but for the Ferrari team colours. One who wants to race for he will have to face his team."
Ferrari started off the season nicely, as the season opener in Bahrain gave them a neat one-two finish, however, following that they were never able to show up as a strong contender until the German Grand Prix.
Now, Di Montezemolo describes the resurgence of Ferrari saying, "First of all the decision to focus on Alonso has been proven to be right. He is extremely strong and very close to the team, and has been able to blend in well from day one despite the concerns
of some. The second is the spirit of determination of the team that has never been broken and disjointed... The third is to have also focused on people like [Stefano] Domenicali and [Aldo] Costa who have proven to be absolutely vital."
However, until the last race of the season one might not be able to predict anything, as the season has evolved in such an uncertain manner and the battle between all the top three teams namely, Red Bull Ferrari and McLaren is very intense and tight.
Moreover, the last races of season had never been a strong aspect of Ferrari. "From 1997, if we exclude 2005, we either won the F1 championship or we lost it in the last race,” the Ferrari team boss told.
Despite the success that Ferrari has always maintained, winning eight constructors' world championships in the past ten years, the team has always been accused of team ordering. Once again this season witnessed the old trick of the team to get the victory.
All this is surely not new for Massa, who had been part of Ferrari’s team orders earlier also. In 2007 at the Brazilian Grand Prix, Massa was asked to hand over his lead to teammate Kimi Räikkönen, while at the very next season, the later handed his win
to Massa at the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix.
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