Martin Whitmarsh expresses disagreement over Ferrari’s race strategy – Formula 1 news
McLaren’s team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, has expressed his disagreement over Ferrari’s strategy to intentionally trigger a penalty to favour their lead driver Fernando Alonso in the United States Grand Prix.
Whitmarsh insists he will never adopt such a race tactic for his own team.
“I don't think so,” Whitmarsh said. “I think it was quite a tough thing to do personally. I'm not criticising anyone for what they do. Team principals have to decide how they run their teams and it's very clear that Ferrari are very focused on Fernando.
In fairness it works for Fernando because, lest we forget, when Fernando was with us it was not doing those things that meant that Fernando left us. You all have to go racing the way you see fit.”
He thinks that while it might have improved Alonso’s chances for the championship, Ferrari ignored the effect their decision had on the other divers who were shifted to the slippery side of the track. He said that if it had been him in place of those drivers,
he would have been very angry.
McLaren’s lead driver Lewis Hamilton remained unaffected and was successful at winning the race. While Whitmarsh is not in support of the Ferrari decision, he thinks that it is more important for him to celebrate his team’s victory.
Ferrari deliberately broke Felipe Massa’s gearbox to put him behind Alonso and more importantly so that Alonso could avoid a rough start. The decision worked promoting the driver to fourth place just within the first lap.
Stefano Domenicali, team principal of Ferrari, has defended the team saying that they did everything in the team’s best interest. He thinks that drivers should respect team decisions because the success of the team should always be a priority. Massa, who
admitted that he had initially not liked the strategy, but later on agreed because it was the right thing to do. He was still able to finish fourth behind Alonso in third driving with a good pace.
Ferrari’s decision was also supported by some teams, like Red Bull, for making use of good logic.
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