Fritz d’Orey: Ferrari slows down number 2 drivers – Formula 1 news
The Brazilian legend Fritz d’Orey has recently stated that Ferrari slows down its number 2 drivers which is not how it should.
He said that they manipulate both of their drivers’ performance in order to ensure that the number 2 driver is not as fast as the number 1 driver.
Back in the early 2000s, Rubens Barrichello was also used as a second driver by the team and d’Orey claims that he had a chat with the former Formula 1 world champion Alain Prost who revealed that Barrichello was going quite strongly at that time.
“Alain Prost told me at a dinner in Paris that they did it to Barrichello when he was going too strongly in relation to Schumacher,” he said.
Michael Schumacher was dominating the sport with a 5 consecutive championship wins back then and it is believed that the team intentionally held back the Brazilian driver in order to ensure the championship for the German driver instead.
Even later on in 2006, Felipe Massa joined the team and since then, he has had only one shot at the title which was back in 2008.
Other than that, Kimi Raikkonen was the team’s first driver back in 2007 while Fernando Alonso has been above Massa at Ferrari and one has to admit, this is what Ferrari must do at least this year as the Brazilian driver has clearly not been up to the mark.
Besides d’Orey, former Brazilian driver Bird Clemente also believes that the drivers’ number theory still exists.
“That's right. I'm sure it still exists. The team as well as the sponsors are making a big investment. To some extent, it is theatre,” said Clemente.
Nevertheless, it seems that Massa might not even be able to score a good performance in 2012 either as he is just clearly not performing up to the standards of the team.
As a result, Ferrari are already looking for his replacement for the 2013 Formula 1 season at least in order to score better constructors’ performances.
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