Hungary Preview

Looking back on my experiences of team orders at Jerez 1997 and Melbourne '98, when McLaren told me to let Mika Hakkinen past, I know how tough it was for Felipe Massa to give up his German Grand Prix win. But to his credit, the way he handled the whole situation as an employee of Ferrari was impeccable. I can understand completely why he made the switch obvious, just as I did in Melbourne, because you've got your own reputation to protect. Since the start of Felipe's career, when he was a bit wild, it wasn't obvious that he would ever win a grand prix. But he has grown as a driver. That great win under pressure in difficult conditions when he was fighting for the world championship in Brazil 2008 was his defining race, and at Hockenheim it was the first time that we¹ve seen a genuinely big performance from him since last year's accident. He was brave and willing to push ­ and exceed ­ the limit in practice, his start was incredible and, although he wasn't quite as quick as Fernando Alonso, he did everything that he needed to do to win. Unfortunately, there are team decisions to be made in F1 and to pretend that there are no such orders is absurd.

NONSENSE RULE
The FIA originally brought in the team orders ban in response to the public outcry after Austria 2002 ­ when Rubens Barrichello handed victory to Michael Schumacher at the last corner. Partly ­ that was down to a lack of understanding of the nature of grand prix racing. I have sympathy with people reacting in this way to what they are seeing, because I want to see great racing like everybody else, but Ferrari's job is to win the world championship and therefore sell its cars. Decisions must be made for the good of the company and to make out that it doesn¹t happen is ridiculous. This is not an individual sport and it's time to have this out in the open. This was not the same situation as Austria 2002, as that was far too early for team orders and Schumacher already had a 21-point lead over Juan Pablo Montoya going into that race. It was only the sixth race of the season after all!

NO COVER UP
You could argue that Ferrari should have been more subtle in the way that it swapped its drivers around. But there's no way I wouldn't have worked it out, or that the readers of AUTOSPORT wouldn't have spotted it straight away. Let's not forget, making it less obvious doesn't make it right. The stewards obviously feel that Ferrari's actions are in breach of the rules so it will go before the FIA World Motor Sport Council. It'll be a great story in the media, and all of the journalists and TV crews will be standing in the Place de la Concorde in Paris for hours, waiting to find out what happens. It's also a story to keep up the coverage over the August break ­ funny how that kind of thing happens so often!

HUNGARY IS KEY RACE
The best news is that this was becoming a two-horse race, but now Ferrari is right back in it. We'll get a good idea in Hungary of just how fast the Prancing Horse can really gallop. There has been some bad luck in recent races with safety cars and stewards¹ decisions, but now Fernando is right back in it. That¹s another great talking point heading into the final stretch of the season.