2014 Formula One Season ***possible spoilers***

Felipe Massa stands by his decision to disregard team orders at the Malaysian Grand Prix ahead of a meeting between the drivers and Williams engineers to discuss the fallout.

Massa was told to let team-mate Valtteri Bottas past towards the end of the race so that Bottas could attempt to overtake Jenson Button for sixth place. Invoking memories of the team orders issued during Massa's Ferrari career, when he was seen as the No.2 driver to Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso, the Williams pit wall told him "Valtteri is faster than you" before ordering Massa to move over.

The plan was swap the drivers back if Bottas failed to pass Button, but Massa said he saw no reason to swap positions and stands by his decision to fend off his team-mate.

"It was not so clear," he said. "I hear everything, but it was not clear. What I did was correct. I'm trying to do the best for the team, that's the most important thing. I'm sure the result will not change if I let him by, so it's the same. What I did, in my opinion was correct.

"I'm doing everything I can to help the team to do the best to improve the car and give as much experience as I can to the team. The team respect me 100% and they showed they respect me after the race as well. I have no problem at all, and what happened today was for sure not what I expect, but in the end it was correct."

However, test and support engineer Rod Nelson, who is standing in as chief race engineer before Rob Smedley joins the team from Ferrari next week, said Bottas would have stood a good chance of getting past Button.

"He [Massa] didn't do what we would have preferred him to do," Nelson said. "You've got to understand that we look to maximise constructors' points whenever we go racing. Felipe was running fairly high temperatures on his engine and we were a little bit concerned about it and Valtteri had much fresher tyres, certainly [fresher] than Jenson did.

"We thought that it would be good to give Vatteri a go at getting past Jenson and if he hadn't achieved that in two or three laps then we would have swapped our drivers over again and everyone would have been happy. It's no big deal, every team does it. It's not team orders, it's a strategic decision based on the relative performance of both cars."

Nelson reiterated that the call from the pit wall had nothing to do with driver favouritism.

"There's always something you're going to do that's going to cause a bit of a fuss, but it's fairly straightforward and it's the way that we work. There's nothing else going on in the background. We don't want to put one driver up and one driver down, we don't have team orders in that respect at Williams. It's not like other teams where they have a No.1 driver and a No.2 driver. We have two No.1 drivers."

Massa said there had been no prior discussion about how to manage the two cars during the race, but Bottas indicated there had. The Finn also felt he stood a good chance at passing Button if he was allowed through.

"I think there was a possibility," Bottas said. "I think because I delayed my first pit stop a little bit my tyres were in a little bit better condition than Button and Felipe in front. It felt like I had a bit more pace today than those two cars, I really think I could have had a good shot at Jenson. I think there could have been a chance maybe to get more points for the team.

"We are going to talk it through with the team and analyse what happened and what we need to do next time in similar situations, just so everything is clear. What are the rules and what we do in these situations and what we will do better next time. Hopefully it will allow us to get more points in the future."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Read more at Felipe Massa insists he was correct to disobey team orders | Williams | Formula 1 news, live F1 | ESPN F1

 

Did you just do a Karen? What's that mean?

 

Ohhhh...you mean he shouldn't have stopped at all...as in stopped for the pit stop?

Very logical indeed.

Point 5....what?

 

fixed

 

There ya go.

 

Lewis Hamilton has ramped up his rivalry with teammate Nico Rosberg by claiming he "blew him away" at Sepang on Sunday.

The 2008 world champion comfortably won the Malaysian grand prix from pole, and although German Rosberg finished second in the sister Mercedes, Hamilton claimed it was one of the easiest triumphs of his eight-year career.

"It's massive. I don't remember the last time in my career I had a gap like that, particularly with a teammate driving the same car," said the Briton.

Hamilton said he had built his advantage from the very start of the practice sessions, and "it worked and that is why I blew him away".

Rosberg won the season opener in Melbourne but only after Hamilton - again from pole - retired with an engine problem.

"I'm pushing myself more than my teammate is pushing me. That's where the push is coming from," Hamilton said at Sepang late on Sunday.

"Nico is very quick, he's won the first race, he's always there, so naturally we are pushing each other.

"But this year I'm pushing myself that extra. I'm eking out more than I've ever been able to eke out."

Jenson Button, a former teammate of Hamilton's at McLaren, thinks Sepang on Sunday was a psychological as well as an actual victory for the 28-year-old.

"Looking at what Lewis did is going to hurt (Rosberg) a little bit. He was super-fast," he said.

"That is a lot to put between you and your teammate when you have both had a clear race. I am sure that is strike one to him," Button added.

Former F1 driver and BBC pundit David Coulthard agrees: "If that was a pure driver-to-driver battle, then Nico psychologically will have taken a bit of a hit."

Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda is quoted by Speed Week: "I have no idea why Nico could not drive at Lewis' level.

"But I am glad that they were not fighting with each other. Now we have to analyse what was the issue with Nico's car as it must be corrected and then we move to Bahrain."

 

Red Bull continued to grapple with fuel flow problems in Sunday's Malaysian grand prix.

While Sebastian Vettel finished third, it was his teammate Daniel Ricciardo's sister RB10 - disqualified in Melbourne over the very same issue - that was once again affected.

The sensor failed early on, but the team avoided disqualification this time around by simply following the FIA's advice about how to comply with the rules in the absence of the troublesome Gill device.

"Yes," Dr Helmut Marko told German television Sky, "this time the FIA asked us to check the correlation of our data and we did it."

Team boss Christian Horner suggested the continuing problems demonstrates that Red Bull has a strong argument to put forward at the forthcoming appeal hearing.

"I think it clearly demonstrates that there are issues with these sensors," he said.

Horner added that he has "no idea" why Red Bull is having more problems than any other rival.

A theory has been bouncing around the paddock that Red Bull's Total fuel might be a contributing factor.

"We are yet to understand why we always have problems when the others don't - it could be something related to the fuel, but we are trying to understand," said Marko.

Germany's Auto Motor und Sport said the Lotus driven by Pastor Maldonado in Malaysia also had a fuel sensor problem, so another theory is that the frequencies produced by Renault's turbo unit could be causing issues.

The publication also said it is possible that installation modifications made to the Gill unit by the Renault-powered teams could be damaging it.

Ricciardo's problems did not stop at the fuel sensor at Sepang, as he struggled with a pitstop problem and a subsequent stop-go penalty and a wing failure.

The 'unsafe release' from the pitstop will also cost him ten grid places in Bahrain this weekend, but boss Horner says he has been impressed with the Australian so far in 2014.

"Today didn't go his way but he gets out of the car and he's got a smile on his face," he said. "He knows that it will come right."

 

Felipe Massa will be told what Williams "expects" him to do when instructions are issued during subsequent grands prix.

As ever in formula one, 'team orders' is not something teams even like to admit to doing.

"How could we do what to Felipe?" deputy boss Claire Williams responded to a question from British television Sky after the Malaysian grand prix.

At Sepang, Brazilian Massa at least twice ignored radio calls to let his teammate Valtteri Bottas pass him for seventh place.

One of the calls - "Valtteri is faster than you" - was almost eerily identical to Ferrari's infamous 'Fernando (Alonso) is faster than you' of Hockenheim 2010.

But Claire Williams initially tried to deny it was actually an order.

"At the end of the day, Felipe finished ahead of Valtteri," she insisted. "They were both told to cool it."

Asked if the team would be rebuking Massa, Williams added: "I'm going home now. That's me done for the day."

It was chief engineer Rod Nelson who had to acknowledge that Massa "didn't do what we would have preferred him to do" as Grove based Williams pursued the sixth-placed Jenson Button's extra points.

"The facts are we felt that Valtteri stood quite a good chance of getting past Button because his tyres were about five laps younger," Nelson said at Sepang.

He explained that the radio calls were not made because Massa is once again being shuffled into an old Ferrari-like 'number 2' role.

"There's nothing else going on in the background," Nelson insisted. "We don't run like that -- it's not like other teams where they have a number 1 driver and a number 2 driver. We've got two number one drivers."

He said the idea was simply to give Bottas "a go" at passing Button, and if he failed to do it, "we would have swapped our drivers over again".

"We will go through it with the drivers and discuss what we expect," said Nelson.

Toni Vilander, a Finnish racing driver and pundit for MTV3 television, said he thinks Massa should have obeyed the order.

"When a team asks, the driver should invariably follow," he said.

"I think Massa should perhaps have swallowed his pride and let Valtteri through," he added.

 

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