German GP 2010: Alonso wins at Hockenheim after team orders

Fernando Alonso won the 2010 German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring ahead of his team-mate Felipe Massa. Pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel finished third for Red Bull. The race, however, was decided not on track but over the radio: Massa led until lap 48 and then let Alonso through after a coded radio message from his engineer. Ferrari were fined for the one-two, and the debate over team orders flared up all over again.

Qualifying could hardly have been closer. Vettel took pole with a 1:13.791, with Alonso just two thousandths of a second behind. Massa started third. At the start Vettel focused on blocking Alonso, and Massa took advantage: the Brazilian went round the outside of both of them on the run to the first corner. Alonso got past Vettel too, and the two Ferraris were already out in front. Jenson Button had to lift behind the Red Bull, and Lewis Hamilton passed Mark Webber on the opening lap.

After lap 1 the order was: Massa, Alonso, Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Button, Robert Kubica, Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg and Kamui Kobayashi. Further back, the Toro Rosso team-mates collided at the hairpin (Turn 6): Jaime Alguersuari ran into the back of Sébastien Buemi and ripped off his rear wing. Buemi's race was over after one lap.

Vettel kicked off the pit stops on lap 12, switching to the hard tyres. Red Bull wanted to get him into clean air. Ferrari reacted immediately, bringing in Alonso and Massa in quick succession. Button, by contrast, deliberately ran a longer first stint and so took the lead from lap 15. He didn't stop until lap 22 and rejoined in fifth. Massa was back in front from lap 23.

On the hard tyres, however, Massa was struggling. Alonso was right on his tail and had a go on lap 20 while they were lapping Bruno Senna and Timo Glock. Massa fought back and at times pulled out a lead of more than three seconds. But Alonso closed the gap again. Vettel also lost time behind Senna and dropped out of the direct fight for victory.

The decisive moment came on lap 48. Massa's race engineer Rob Smedley radioed his driver: “OK, so, Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?” (Wikipedia). A lap later Massa came out of the hairpin conspicuously slowly, and Alonso swept past. The Spaniard led from lap 49 and took the win by just over four seconds. Shortly afterwards, Smedley apologised to Massa over the radio. Asked whether he had been told to give up the lead, the Brazilian said only: “I don't think I need to say anything about that.” (UPI)

At the time, team orders that influenced the outcome of a race were expressly banned. The stewards found a breach of that rule and of the ban on bringing the sport into disrepute. They fined Ferrari US$100,000 but let the result stand and referred the case to the FIA World Motor Sport Council. Ferrari denied having issued any order.

Context: On 8 September 2010 the World Council upheld the fine but imposed no further penalty and had the rule reviewed. From 2011 the FIA scrapped the ban on team orders.

Vettel finished around a second behind Massa. Chasing second place, he set the fastest lap of the race.

Five drivers failed to finish:

• Sébastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) was out after one lap following the collision with Alguersuari.
• Jarno Trulli (Lotus) lost second gear to a gearbox problem and parked up after 3 laps.
• Sakon Yamamoto (HRT) retired after 19 laps with an engine failure.
• Lucas di Grassi (Virgin) was out after 50 laps with a gearbox failure.
• Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus) retired after 56 laps. He had collided with Pedro de la Rosa (Sauber) in a lapping incident, for which Kovalainen received a reprimand.

The biggest gainers were Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India) and Timo Glock (Virgin): both moved up five places, to 16th and 18th respectively. That made Glock the best driver from the new teams. It was still a bad day for Force India, though. Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil were fitted with mixed-up tyres at their early stop after the first lap and had to pit again. Vitaly Petrov worked his way up in the Renault from grid position 13 to 10th and scored a point.

On the losing side, alongside Buemi (down eight places) and Trulli (down six), were the two Williams drivers. Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hülkenberg lost places at the start and could only finish 12th and 13th. At Red Bull, Webber had to back off because of high oil consumption and ended up sixth. Home hero Schumacher finished ninth for Mercedes. He had lost places during the pit stops and took only two points from his home race.

By finishing fourth, Hamilton extended his championship lead to 157 points. Button follows on 143 points, with Webber and Vettel level behind him on 136 each. His win took Alonso to 123 points, and he is now just 13 behind the Red Bull duo. In the constructors' championship, McLaren lead with 300 points from Red Bull (272) and Ferrari (208). You can find the full 2010 standings in our season archive.

In sporting terms, the one-two was a clear sign for Ferrari that the team could once again run right at the front. By deciding in Alonso's favour, Ferrari also backed him early on as their title contender. At the same time, Ferrari came under heavy fire after Hockenheim for the team orders, and the question of whether a ban on team orders could be enforced at all was open once more.