Alonso takes second victory of 2010 in Germany
Alonso was let through into the lead on lap 49
Sunday, 25, Jul 2010 02:17
By Adam Leveridge.
Fernando Alonso secured his first race victory since the season-opening Bahrain grand prix and Ferrari's first one-two of the season at Hockenheim, however, the result was overshadowed by accusations that the Maranello-based outfit had deploying team orders.
Felipe Massa lost the lead when he seemed to let his teammate through in the closing stages of the grand prix, but held second place over Sebastian Vettel in the lead Red Bull to give Ferrari and maximum haul of points.
After a tense and closely fought qualifying battle, which saw Vettel nab pole position from Alonso's grasp by two thousandths of a second, suggested the German grand prix itself would be just as dramatic.
Both Alonso and Massa got a lightening start but it was the Brazilian who was the winner away from the grid, as he benefited from Vettel moving across to cover Alonso on the inside of turn one.
Massa had a clear run around the outside of the first right-hander and Alonso found enough of a gap to pass Vettel, despite being squeezed towards the pit-wall by the German.
Webber also got a slow start from the fourth grid slot, but he held position over both McLarens, until the pack arrived at the turn six hairpin when Hamilton lunged up the inside.
As a result, Button was relegated to sixth place ahead of Robert Kubica in the lead Renault and the fast-starting Michael Schumacher, who had leapt up from 11th to eighth place by the completion of lap one.
Further down the order, Sebastian Buemi was forced into retirement when Adrian Sutil collided with him and removed his rear-wing.
Sutil suffered damage to his front-wing and pitted for repairs and he was followed in by Tonio Liuzzi.
However, things went from bad to worse for Force India, as they fitted their drivers with the wrong tyres and were forced to call them back in for another change to avoid being penalised by the FIA, pushing them to the very back of the field.
Lotus also suffered more misfortune, as Trulli retired early on in the race after such a strong performance during qualifying.
Red Bull attempted to bring Vettel back into play with the Ferraris by brining him in really early on lap 13, however, the Maranello-based outfit were quick to react by bringing in Alonso on the following lap.
This sparked a frenzy within the pits and Webber, Hamilton and Massa all opted to change onto the harder compound of tyre to cover Vettel.
While Vettel emerged from his stop in clean air, Webber and Hamilton had no such luck and were in the middle of the fight for seventh place as they returned to the action, although Kobayashi, Schumacher and Kubica all pitted shortly after freeing them up to chase down the leading trio.
Button, on the other hand, stayed out on the super-softs for much longer and this proved to be a good call by the McLaren team, as he would emerge in fourth place and ahead of Webber after his one and only stop of the afternoon.
In the laps following the stops, Alonso closed on Massa while Vettel began to draw in both of the red cars.
The Brazilian struggled to acclimatise to the hard tyres and he feel into the clutches of his teammate, who attempted a move at the hairpin as they negotiated lapped traffic.
Massa covered his line well but was under threat as he entered the stadium section, cutting the nose of Alonso but locking his brakes at the next corner once again.
Alonso was then dropped by Massa by more than half a second per lap and all of a sudden there was a three second buffer between the two scarlet cars, allowing Massa some time to breath.
The Spaniard tried to respond to his teammate's pace, but Massa appeared to have an answer for him and he continued to build an advantage with 36 laps under his belt.
However, both McLarens and Webber were seemingly unable to keep up with the top-three runners and were soon over 15 seconds adrift of the race leader.
Webber was told to maintain a gap of over four seconds to Button to manage an oil consumption problem with his Red Bull, which could potentially lead to other overheating issues or even an engine failure.
Fortunately the Aussie had a comfortable gap to those behind him and he was able to just nurse his car home in sixth place, while his teammate in third continued to set fastest laptimes in an attempt to catch the Ferraris ahead of him.
As the race neared its end Alonso picked up the pace in response to a faster Vettel and team orders appeared to come into play, with Massa being passed by Alonso on lap 49.
Vettel continued to hone in on Massa and he broke into the 1m16s as they leaders negotiated more lapped traffic, however, Massa did just enough to hold off the German, completing a one-two for Ferrari, their first of the 2010 season.
Kubica was the best of the rest in seventh place, behind the ailing Webber, while the Mercedes pairing ended-up in eight and ninth places, with Rosberg leading his more experienced teammate across the line.