Fernado Alonso's Second Win with a Star

By star, I mean the asterisk (*).  On Sunday, he won the 2010 Formula 1 German Grand Prix following orders given to his team mate, Felipe Massa, by Ferrari team management, to allow Alonso to pass.  Well, Ferrari wasn't as bold as that.  The message was: "Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?" The message was delivered by Massa's race engineer Rob Smedley but was ordered by team boss Stefano Domenicali.  Earlier in the race, Alonso, who has been developing quite a reputation as a whiner, called over the radio to his engineer "This is ridiculous" as he followed Massa closely but was unable to pass.  Shortly thereafter, Massa pulled an additional three second lead over Alonso, but wasn't able to maintain it.

A minute or so after Massa got the message, he slowed coming out of the hairpin and Alonso passed to take the win. 

Ferrari claimed that it did not tell Massa to let Alonso pass but simply advised him that Alonso was faster that he was.  Of course, Massa's Ferrari has rearview mirrors and he can see Alonso behind him.  He can ask his engineer, Smedley, for the gap and certainly Rob Smedley was providing that information over the radio.

So we have cause and effect: Ferrari calls Massa over the radio and says "Alonso is faster" and also demands that he acknowledge the message. The effect is that Massa slows and allows Alonso to pass.  Smedley gets on the radio again and says "Good lad" as if he's rewarding his dog for pooping outside!

Ferrari have a lot of history with team orders.  When Michael Schumacher was their acknowledged number 1 driver, they issued team orders to his teammate on a regular basis.  In Austria, in 2001, they ordered a swap between the 2nd and 3rd position, with David Coulthard's McLaren leading the race.  In 2002, with Michael Schumacher having a decisive lead in the World Championship points race, they ordered to Rubens Barrichello to let Michael past.  On the last corner of the last lap, Barrichello braked dramatically and let his teammate past.

The FIA, which governs the sport, passed a rule banning team orders as a result of that blatant change in the race result.

The other * for Fernando's win column is, of course, another team order.  This one was arranged in secret, with the radio message simply telling Alonso's teammate Nelson Piquet Jr when to stage a crash that would bring out the Safety Car.  Since they knew when and where the crash would be, the Renault team ensured that Alonso had the optimum fuel and tire strategy to win.  Which he did.  To be fair, Alonso claims he didn't know about the conspiracy to fix the race results with a staged crash and I believe him.  On the other hand, had he known, I also believe that he would have approved.  After all, with Alonso, it's "...me, only me."

Ferrari has been fined $100,000 as a result of the team orders and has been referred to the World Motor Sports Council for violation of two rules.  One is specifically about team orders.  The other, potentially much more serious, is Article 151c, Bringing the sport into disrepute.

Carl Edwards is a P**sy

I am not a big NASCAR fan- it's more entertainment than it is racing, or as I just put it in a discussion group, NASCAR is to racing what the WWF is to Olympic wrestling. 

But here we have Carl Edwards intentionally hitting another racer, in this case, his old nemisis Brad Keselowski.  On the last lap of the race today, he hit him, causing a wreck that took several cars out of the race.  Here's what he had to say:

“I just couldn’t let him take the win away from me…We had a great restart…We came to the checkered flag, and I hate to see stuff tore up, but we came here to win and he took it from there in turn 1…I’m sure some of them don’t like that win, Brad Keselowski fans and stuff, but man, I just couldn’t let him take it away from me. I had to do what I had to do,” said the unremorseful Edwards as he celebrated in victory lane at Gateway.

So besides Carl having a problem stringing two sentences together in something approximating English, he's saying "Hey, it's ok to cheat." because intentionally causing a crash is cheating. 

NASCAR won't do anything about it because the spectacle of another Edwards vs. Keselowski incident sells tickets and NASCAR is having trouble selling tickets at the moment.

The first big dust up,  last year at  Atlanta, put Keselowski's car into the debris fence, putting spectators at real risk.  I hope that spectators are not injured, but if they are injured or worse as a result of intentional contact, then I sincerely hope they sue Edwards and NASCAR into bancruptcy.

Finally - Carl, be a man.  If you have a problem with Keselowski, take it behind the garage, just you and Keselowski.  Don't endanger other people, don't ruin other racers' finishes and cost those teams money for repairs and lost earnings.  But Carl won't.  Cause he's a p**sy.