On this day in 2010 Ferrari forced Felipe Massa to give his victory to Fernando Alonso who was fighting for the championship with McLaren and Red Bull.
Vettel in the Red Bull RB06 took the pole position just 0.002 s ahead of Alonso in Ferrari, but as they fought at the start of the race, Massa overtook them both on the outside.
Massa was leading until lap 49 when he let his team-mate Alonso who had a much higher chances for the title and who was fourth in the championship after this race, 34 points behind Hamilton. The FIA fined Ferrari for $ 100,000 for violating the rules on team regulations.
Alonso complained to his team on the radio saying ‘This is ridiculous’, he thought he was stuck behind Massa, who does not want to let him go and does not fight for the title while team told Massa ‘Fernando is faster than you, can you confirm that you understood the message?’
After Massa let Alonso by, team told him, “Good boy, now stick behind him. Sorry.” And despite all of this, after the race they pretended that they didn’t obey team orders.
Fernando said that he thought Massa had a gearbox problem while Felipe said it was his decision to let Fernando through because he was slow on harder tyres.
In addition to the controversy between the two leading Ferrari drivers, this race was also a home comeback for Michael Schumacher, who had been driving F1 car in Germany for the last time in 2006, and for Mercedes, who had not been on the domestic F1 race since 1954 (they withdrew from the motorsport after the tragedy at Le Mans in 1955).
“This is a very important win, which comes on the back of weeks of hard work from the team, who pushed to make up the ground that separates us from our main rivals,” said Alonso.
“Race after race, the improvements applied to the F10 have proved to be effective, thus making the car more competitive. I am very happy, because winning with Ferrari is a very special feeling.”
“At the start I was pushed right up against the wall by Vettel, whose only thought was to close me down, while Felipe made the most of it to go past both of us.”
“Then, I tried to stay close all the time to my team-mate and when he had some difficulties, I got past: I am sure that Felipe was thinking above all of the good of the team and that it was pointless to take risks when we had Vettel catching us up.”
“There is no point in doing the sums for the championship now. We have shown what our package can do in a normal race and we must simply continue to work, trying to always pick up the maximum number of points. As I have always said, the final tally will come in Abu Dhabi.”
