They are admitting to team orders and think we are all a bunch of hypocrites.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 856761.stm

they're right. there's always orders, just usually they're more subtle...earlier this season it's pretty obvious mclaren ordered button and hamilton not to challenge each other (at turkey?), admittedly after they'd already nearly taken each other out (after webber and vettel did)...and in this instance, if alonso had been in front of massa and massa had been going quicker, i'm sure ferrari probably would have told massa to 'conserve fuel', it's no less of a team order to fix the result yet no one would have batted an eye lid about it. even the vettel/webber crash earlier this year was probably a 'team order' that backfired because webber was either deliberatley kept out the loop or refused to play along...

Are you a joke account?

who me? because i suggested that maybe something more duplicitous could be going on behind the scenes? so you can't imagine the possibility that red bull might favour vettel over webber? and therefore tried to engineer a scenario to put vettel ahead of webber? as in that instance when webber was told to turn his engine down to save fuel, but vettel wasn't, even when webber asked if he would be?
i'll accept my use of 'probably' instead of 'possibly' is a little inflamatory, but if you think ferrari are the only team to have tried to influence the order of their drivers this season then it is you that deserve the facepalms...

I thought one was enough, personally.

i called AND raised you!

If I’m recalling the same event as than there are some major differences. I don’t think that McLaren ordered Kovi to let Hamilton pass and Kovi had still to pit and Hamilton not. So they where not really fighting for position.

Yes but Eddie Jordan's point, quite rightly in my opinion (never thought I'd say that) is that it wasn't against the rules in 1998. Here it clearly WAS.

I think team orders should be allowed. The rule makes **** all sense at the moment. As Brundle said, if Ferrari had been a bit more subtle, nobody would have batted an eyelid.

It would be great for teammates to have genuine battles on track and I certainly don't like the idea of No.1 and No.2 drivers within a team, but when one driver is clearly holding the other up, team orders make sense. Although at Hockenheim, I don't think Massa was that much slower than Alonso, so it was annoying to see him move over.

It's difficult to know what's best.

One problem I think is that team orders themselves are not necessarily right or wrong. For example the Barricello Schumacher situation 8 years back that led to the ban was clearly wrong. However if you imagine for example a situation where a teammate gets stuck behind the other who has yet to pit it makes sense for the team to tell the car ahead to let the car behind pass and there'd be nothing wrong with it.

Maybe they could introduce a request system or something? Team orders would be totally forbidden unless teams put in a request to Charlie Whiting/the stewards. That way, simple situations in which one driver is needlessly holding up the other could be sorted, but anything else could be prevented? Sounded better in my head.

I don't think the rule needs changing. It has worked fine for 8 years and only Ferrari seem to have an issue with it. It was basically brought in solely to prevent exactly what we saw on Sunday.

Practice One Times:
01. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:20.976 29 laps
02. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:21.106 + 0.130 27 laps
03. Kubica Renault 1:22.072 + 1.096 21 laps
04. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:22.444 + 1.468 17 laps
05. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:22.601 + 1.625 25 laps
06. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:22.764 + 1.788 24 laps
07. Alonso Ferrari 1:22.772 + 1.796 25 laps
08. Rosberg Mercedes 1:22.777 + 1.801 25 laps
09. Schumacher Mercedes 1:22.792 + 1.816 26 laps
10. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:22.966 + 1.990 25 laps
11. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:23.003 + 2.027 19 laps
12. Massa Ferrari 1:23.007 + 2.031 26 laps
13. Petrov Renault 1:23.249 + 2.273 24 laps
14. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:23.327 + 2.351 23 laps
15. di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1:23.520 + 2.544 19 laps
16. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:23.780 + 2.804 22 laps
17. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:23.868 + 2.892 28 laps
18. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:24.075 + 3.099 15 laps
19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:25.032 + 4.056 22 laps
20. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:25.210 + 4.234 23 laps
21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:25.990 + 5.014 21 laps
22. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:26.686 + 5.710 17 laps
23. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:26.990 + 6.014 34 laps
24. Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 1:28.157 + 7.181 24 laps

i think the rule was brought in to give others a chance to beat schumacher really. the same thing had always been going on before and never been a problem, but viewers were being turned off by the boring nature of schumacher winning everything, and the idea of the best driver in the best car with a team mate just running interferance to help him further was seen as too much.

No it was because of the way it was done, on the final corner in front of the main stand practically in front of the chequered flag. Not to mention that clearly Rubens didn't want to do it, in the same way Massa made that clear too.

it only happened like that because Rubens refused to concede the position earlier, which made it look worse and therefore became a bigger issue. let's say the rule was brought in to try 'to make racing fairer and potentially more interesting to the viewer particularly during an era that was being dominated by a single bloke and people thought it was getting boring.'

Practice Two Times:
01. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:20.087 33 laps
02. Alonso Ferrari 1:20.584 + 0.497 34 laps
03. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:20.597 + 0.510 36 laps
04. Massa Ferrari 1:20.986 + 0.899 33 laps
05. Petrov Renault 1:21.195 + 1.108 33 laps
06. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.308 + 1.221 30 laps
07. Kubica Renault 1:21.375 + 1.288 37 laps
08. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:21.623 + 1.536 41 laps
09. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:21.730 + 1.643 33 laps
10. Schumacher Mercedes 1:21.773 + 1.686 31 laps
11. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:21.809 + 1.722 38 laps
12. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:21.844 + 1.757 36 laps
13. Rosberg Mercedes 1:22.039 + 1.952 28 laps
14. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:22.212 + 2.125 37 laps
15. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:22.469 + 2.382 43 laps
16. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:22.507 + 2.420 22 laps
17. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:22.602 + 2.515 38 laps
18. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:23.138 + 3.051 36 laps
19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:24.553 + 4.466 37 laps
20. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:25.376 + 5.289 35 laps
21. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:25.669 + 5.582 32 laps
22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:26.745 + 6.658 33 laps
23. Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 1:26.798 + 6.711 32 laps
24. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:27.705 + 7.618 5 laps