Should Massa / Ferrari be punished?

I think all teams do it.......

Only way to stop it is to run one car only.

Truth MS was pulling away the first lap with Massa holding him off. It was the yellow that pulled them back together.

 

there's nothing illegal about this at all

 

The only way to stop it, is to not have teams.... just one driver/car each.

It's part of the chess game of racing.

 

Hehehe.........Punishing Ferrari........pretty funny

It's been like this for year !!! Rubinho used to do it for Schumi all the time too !! That's how it is. It's part of the game and you have to prove it to the team that they are doing it and that will be hard to do.

 

This has been a part of racing for ages. No punishment is called for

 

Actually, I thought Massa was staying too close to Button, especially given that all of the announcers thought that Ferrari were on a 3-stop strategy.

This is part of Formula One racing though...

 

If you feel someone is going too slow, then you pass him. If you can't pass him then he is not going too slow.

The whole point of racing is to finish the laps at the slowest possible speed so that the car survives, yet fast enough to stay ahead of everyone else.

I think it has been like that since the first person strapped on 4 wheels and an engine.

Of course one of the greatest racers of all time didn't follow these rules exactly and he is no longer with us.

just my 2 cents.

 

All things being equal: what goes around comes around: every team in F1 has done it, whoever second banana was to Senna when he was at Lotus, second banana to Piquet at Williams, Rubens when he was at Ferrari (!), every team has done it.

 

If this is "part of racing," then why do they blue-flag backmarkers that are going slowly? The backmarkers are still racing for position.

 

Because they're being lapped.

 

That's not always true...in modern F1 you can be faster than a driver in front of you and still be unable to pass...especially at Monza and Monaco...

 

I am not so sure tha Massa slowed down just to help his teammate. You would be giving Massa more credit than he may deserve. Nevertheless, there is not one front running team that has not been part of a similar scenario.

 

LOL, he was actually going as fast as he could.

Seriously that's just part of racing. Nothing wrong with this. Just wait until we get to Monaco...

 

As I said in another thread, the unfortunate thing is that Massa's actions probably cost him a podium position. I do feel uneasy about team order in general - especially this early in the season. I guess Massa did the right thing by slowing Alonso up. This is certainly more palatable than seeing him move over to let his team-mate pass him.
I see no problem with what happened on Sunday. If Massa had been ahead of Michael and then been ordered to let MS past I would have been angry as it is too early in the season for those kind of tactics - actions like that cost us the WDC in 1999.

 

Don't even get me started on that one. It still hurts.

 

Being the faster car, but can't get around the guy in front of you makes no sense, because if you were faster - and better - you would find a way, you would force the guy into a mistake, unless he is the ice man.

Imagine if there was somebody stuck on Alonso's tail last weekend - the 2 'major' mistakes he made in the last 3-4 laps would have allowed whoever was on his butt right around him...

 

In closing laps of 2005 imola MS was clearly faster than Alonso. If we follow same logic - Alonso should just pull over and let Michael to take P1

 

I think both were cruising. FM could had gone faster with the amount of fuel he had. FA had more fuel and he was simply following Massa's pace. lap 3 to 13 FM was following Michael's pace, 13 to 20 he dropped off the pace (team orders maybe I dunno) Nothing wrong with that.

btw look at FA's laptimes when Massa pitted.
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As mentioned, it is a tactic that has been done for a very long time, and the teams knows it and they do apply what strategy they can do work around it. One is always following close, conserve tires and fuel to run hot laps while the other guys pit. A large portion of MS victories came in this fashion, As Varsha often commented, Michael is doing what he does so well, the 3 hot flying laps needed to get ahead in pit exhange, executing the strategy to a perfection.

I always felt that if the tracks are too small and narrow to pass for modern F1 cars, then make the modern F1 cars smaller. I mean, they are basically fresh designs every year!

I love the level of F1 competition today, but I do miss the Senna era.

 

Yes, the level of competition TODAY is better than it has been since the 70's, because this year we have 6 strong, viable teams that are really capable of winning, whereas up until this year, we have usually had only 3.

And it's truly amazing to me we have 6, with the costs totally out of control.

 

The cars used to be wider. I think it was the late 90's that they were made narrower. The main reason overtaking is difficult is that they have so much aero-grip. When you get close to another car you lose a load of grip, so passing is difficult. If the front wing was made less effective or was removed altogether we would see closer racing.

I do too, but I am sure there will be people posting here soon saying they miss the Alonso era. We all have a rose-tinted view of the past. Was the racing better, or did it just seem that way because I could immerse myself in it without worrying about kids/wives etc interrupting?