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GERMANY 25th July 2010 - Felipe Massa handed Ferrari team mate Fernando Alonso a controversial victory in Sunday's German Grand Prix as the red team scored their second one-two of the season and the win they were under so much pressure to achieve before the summer break, beating Sebastian Vettel’s pole-winning Red Bull into third place.

Lewis Hamilton held on to his championship lead as fourth place brought him to 157 points ahead of McLaren team mate Jenson Button, who moved to 143 points after finishing fifth. Red Bull’s Mark Webber was sixth after a race in which he was held back by an engine problem. He and Vettel are now joint third with 136 points, as Alonso closed up on 123 and Massa climbed to 85.

As Vettel squeezed Alonso towards the pit wall at the start, Massa sprinted around the outside of both to take the lead and he held it until the 49th lap, when he slowed - deliberately it seemed to the spectator - exiting the hairpin, allowing Alonso to overtake. The previous lap the two Ferraris had been eight-tenths of a second apart, with Vettel 5.1s back.

As Alonso sped home to win, Massa let Vettel close in but always had things under control to take second place, a year to the day since his accident in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Hamilton didn’t have the pace to hold on to the three leaders, but kept Button behind him as Webber struggled with his oil consumption problem to stay in the damage limitation game.

Behind them, there was a big fight in the midfield for the lower points. Robert Kubica took his Renault to a lapped seventh place ahead of the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, with Renault’s Vitaly Petrov putting in a strong performance to take the final point in 10th place.

BMW Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa ran most of the race on a set of prime Bridgestone tyres and finally switched to options on the 51st of the 67 laps, dropping from seventh to 14th. Then Heikki Kovalainen closed the door while being lapped, necessitating another stop for a new front wing. The Lotus driver retired, joining team mate Jarno Trulli who’d stopped earlier.

Kamui Kobayashi took 11th in the other BMW Sauber, ahead of the dueling Williams of Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg which both lost out in a first-lap melee when the two Force Indias and the two Toro Rossos all got together. Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi lost his rear wing and had to quit, but Jaime Alguersuari recovered to take 15th ahead of Liuzzi and Sutil, the latter using three sets of tyres.

Timo Glock and Virgin emerged as the winner of the new teams’ race, from Bruno Senna’s HRT, as Lucas di Grassi spun and had to retire after leading his Virgin team mate, and HRT’s Sakon Yamamoto also failed to go the distance.

Driver Quotes - Podium

FERNANDO ALONSO: “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. 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.

FELIPE MASSA: “A driver always wants to win, so I cannot be completely happy with second place. I know that this year, the team has lost too many points in previous races and today it was important to do the maximum. We drivers have to first of all think of the interests of the team and that is what I showed again today. In my opinion this was not a case of team orders: my engineer kept me constantly informed on what was going on behind me, especially when I was struggling a bit on the hard tyres: so I decided to do the best thing for the team, and a one-two finish is the best possible result, isn’t it? I got a great start, the best of the season. At the start, on the soft tyres I was going very quickly but then, with the hards, I was unable to run at an ideal pace. I think today I proved that when everything is in order, I am a winning driver. It would have been nice to stand on a higher step on the podium but all the same, I want to dedicate this result to Fernando Marins, a relation of mine, who passed away at the start of this week.”

SEBASTIAN VETTEL: “Normally we have very good starts, so I’m not really sure what happened today. I had quite a lot of grip, I dumped the clutch, but got bogged down, so the first five to ten metres of the acceleration were poor. I was lucky I didn't stall the engine, but I lost the momentum so I knew that it would be very tight with Fernando who I was already side by side with. There was no way I could stay ahead of him and then I was surprised to see Felipe coming from the left. But, after that we still had a good race.  The closer I got to the car in front, I began to feel tyres losing grip and starting to grain, but I think for most of the race the Ferraris were probably a tenth or two quicker than us. It was difficult to keep up the pace.  Towards the end we were able to push again a little bit. We finished third and I think we can be proud of that. We achieved our maximum today and I was very pleased to be on the podium. It’s very special for me at my home Grand Prix, it’s great to see the people here and to be on the podium – to see everyone cheering is very nice and emotional.”

STOP PRESS:

Ferrari referred to WMSC over team orders

Following their controversial one-two result at the German Grand Prix, Ferrari have been fined US$100,000 by the FIA after race stewards deemed they had breached sporting regulations and the case has been referred to the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC).

RACE RESULTS: 

Pos  Driver               Team                                             Time
1.  Alonso             Ferrari                                 1h28:38.866
2.  Massa             Ferrari                                 +     4.196
3.  Vettel              Red Bull-Renault                  +     5.121
4.  Hamilton          McLaren-Mercedes                +    26.896
5.  Button             McLaren-Mercedes                +    29.482
6.  Webber           Red Bull-Renault                  +    43.606
7.  Kubica             Renault                              +     1 lap
8.  Rosberg          Mercedes                            +     1 lap
9.  Schumacher     Mercedes                            +     1 lap
10.  Petrov           Renault                              +     1 lap
11.  Kobayashi      Sauber-Ferrari                     +     1 lap
12.  Barrichello      Williams-Cosworth               +     1 lap
13.  Hulkenberg    Williams-Cosworth               +     1 lap
14.  De la Rosa     Sauber-Ferrari                    +     1 lap
15.  Alguersuari    Toro Rosso-Ferrari               +     1 lap
16.  Liuzzi            Force India-Mercedes          +    2 laps
17.  Sutil              Force India-Mercedes          +    2 laps
18.  Glock            Virgin-Cosworth                   +    3 laps
19.  Senna           HRT-Cosworth                     +    4 laps

EDITOR - Mark Cox