Ferrari

Sebastian Vettel's move on Fernando Alonso in Monza was almost certainly a deliberate payback for last year's identical move in which the roles were reversed. It was nasty, unnecessary and probably unsportsmanlike—but it just wasn't illegal.

The arguments about whether the stewards were justified in penalizing Sebastian Vettel for the incident in which Fernando Alonso took to the grass in Monza continue.

The voracity of the argument often depends little on any technical merit, but rather which supporters club you may have made camp in.

There is, however, a technical basis for the discussion and breaking it down it can be shown that the stewards got it wrong.

The whole rationale for Vettel being penalised this year when Alonso wasn’t penalized last year for an identical move is the rules clarification handed down by FIA Racing Director Charlie Whiting in July.

The clarification, as published by F1Fanatic.co.uk, states that,

“Any driver defending his position on a straight and before any braking area, may use the full width of the track during his first move provided no significant portion of the car attempting to pass is alongside his” (emphasis as in original document).

It was pretty clear that Alonso had a significant portion of his car alongside which satisfies that portion of the ruling, however, the incident happened in the middle of Turn 3—the Curva Grande—as indicated in the stewards report, also published on F1Fanatic.co.uk.

“[While] defending his position [Vettel] forced [Alonso] off the track even though [Alonso] had a significant portion of his car alongside into turn three.”

That’s pretty definitive, the rule “clarification” doesn’t apply in corners.

Put simply, the stewards got it wrong.

Underneath it all, however, is something even more fundamental.

This is Formula 1 racing, the supposed pinnacle of world motorsport, are we really suggesting that drivers have to allow themselves to be overtaken?

We have DRS which takes a significant portion of the skill out of overtaking already, are we now suggesting that a driver has to pull off the racing line to allow another car to pass if that racing line goes near the edge of the track?

That’s ridiculous.

Vettel was following his normal racing line as could be seen by watching laps before and after the incident. There was a degree of variation between laps depending on traffic and his line out of the previous corner, but he did not take a significantly different line in this incident.

He threw a small feint at Alonso when he saw that the Spaniard was looking to the outside. It was a twitch designed to slow Alonso down, not run him off the road, but it is being reported that telemetry showed Vettel made a sharp move to the left.

Watch the footage to see what really happened.

There was also distance between Vettel and the edge of the track; granted, it wasn’t a full car width, but it certainly didn’t warrant Alonso taking the detour that he ended up taking.

Of course, the whole argument is moot thanks to Vettel’s alternator issue, but there is a principle in play here.

In the same race, Paul di Resta ran Bruno Senna off the road in exactly the circumstances described in Whiting’s clarification and nothing came of it.

A little consistency would also help.

With the talk of Lewis Hamilton's possible switch to Mercedes next year consuming the paddock in Monza, is it possible his move could see Michael Schumacher return to his former home at Ferrari?

When Michael Schumacher's Ferrari engine blew up with 17 laps of the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix still remaining, his last chance to win the world championship in a Ferrari was blown with it. 

Had Schumacher's engine held out, he would have left Japan with a two-point lead over Fernando Alonso going into a Brazilian Grand Prix where his Ferrari was the class of the field; as it transpired, he required a minor miracle to occur in Sao Paulo, when all he got was more unreliability.

Fast forward three years and Schumacher was set to step back into a Ferrari cockpit to replace the injured Felipe Massa.  Injury for Michael put pay to that comeback attempt, but the situation kick-started a process which would eventually see the seven-time world champion return to the sport with Mercedes.

Now, a further three years on, Schumacher finds his future in Formula One questioned once again. When he left in 2006, it was—it later transpired—more because Ferrari wanted to replace him with Kimi Raikkonen than with Schumacher's lack of desire to stay in the sport.  Now, if the rumours reported on BBC Sport are to be believed, Lewis Hamilton could be being brought in to replace the German at Mercedes for 2013.

But does the timing actually present Michael with an opportunity? Could this actually bring about a move to more competitive machinery?

Ferrari's Felipe Massa has not performed up to the team's expectations in 2012.  As discussed here, the Brazilian has largely under-performed ever since his return from the serious injury that almost saw Schumacher step in during 2009, and it seems that Ferrari are unwilling to be patient much longer.

But which available drivers are qualified to replace Massa?  As a winner of 11 grand prix, there aren't many currently in F1 with more race-winning experience.  The only exception to this is Hamilton, but the British driver has history as a teammate of Ferrari golden boy Fernando Alonso, and neither the team nor Alonso would want a repeat of their bitter 2007 season.

But if Hamilton did oust Schumacher from Mercedes, then the most successful driver in the history of Formula One would suddenly become available.  Could this be an option for the Scuderia?

The synergy of this arrangement would be quite incredible.  Ferrari are widely believed to have some kind of "pre-contract" with Sebastien Vettel for 2014.  The details of this are sketchy and varied, but a long-term view from the team sees Vettel teaming up with Alonso before succeeding him as their No. 1 man. Therefore, all they need for 2013 is someone to fill the void temporarily.

Meanwhile, at 43, Schumacher surely only has a few more seasons left in him.  At the same time, his form since returning is getting stronger and stronger: He has outscored his young, race-winning, teammate, Nico Rosberg, in four of the last five races (unreliability accounting for the fifth); he set the fastest time (pole position in all but name) at this year's Monaco Grand Prix; and, if you analyse qualifying for the season and assign race points for qualifying positions, Schumacher is sixth, ahead of Rosberg and both Lotus cars.

Clearly, the old man of Formula One is still more than competitive.

What would be nice, not to mention fitting, for the most statistically successful driver in the history of the sport would be a farewell season—a last hurrah, if you will.  What better place to do that than the team at which you secured a record five consecutive world titles?

The head of Ferrari, Luca diMontezemolo, has said that the Michael Schumacher that returned to the sport is not the one he knew—the implication being that he's not the same when in silver rather than red overalls. Why not bring the real one back for one more go?

Follow the writer on Twitter @RobertLewington.

Jenson Button's victory at Spa in Belgium was about as measured and composed as is possible in the Formula 1 of 2012. 

Any comparisons between his race pace and that of Sebastien Vettel in the final stint are really very subjective, Button having a sufficiently large buffer to be able to measure his pace against his nearest challenger, and even then their ultimate fastest laps were only a tenth apart.

The first corner incident changed the race, and while Fernando Alonso will feel a little aggrieved to see his championship lead to Vettel cut to less than a race victory, one of the other big losers in the first corner was the race as a spectacle.

Alonso had made a good start and would have gone into the first corner in around fourth position—which would have become third after the resultant penalty for Maldonado's obvious jump start—and from that position he would have been far better placed to challenge Button than eventual second-place man Vettel, who dropped down to 11th.

Felipe Massa's pace in clear air showed that the Ferrari, as usual, is a stronger race car than a qualifier, and while Button's ease in the race meant he never had to push his McLaren to reveal its true potential, the Englishman's early buffer would probably not have been created had he not had Nico Hulkenberg holding up faster cars behind him.

Also, it is very probable that one if not both of the Sauber drivers would have been a real threat had they not been caught up in the Grosjean-induced melee. Like their engine supplier's car, the Sauber-Ferrari is not as competitive in qualifying as in the race, and yet still Kamui Kobayashi was Button's closest challenger in qualifying. 

With the top two finishers opting for a one-stop strategy and Sauber's renowned kindness to its tyres, this was surely a race tailor-made for their car. In Montreal, around a track with similar characteristics to Spa, it was Perez in the Sauber who showed incredible pace to go from 15th on the grid to third in the race using the one-stop tactic.

On the other hand, as well as Button, the other winner from the first corner crash was Sebastien Vettel. The world champion showed consistent pace throughout and made crucial overtaking maneuvers at the right times—foremost among these his pass on team-mate Mark Webber at the bus stop chicane which gave the opportunity to run a one-stop strategy.

The German has turned a 42-point deficit into a 24-point one, which significantly reduces Alonso's comfort zone. And while the Red Bull is not always the fastest car, it is competitive enough in races to consistently pick up podiums, if not wins.

The Ferrari is arguably slightly slower than the Red Bull on average, and what had previously looked like a solid lead for the Spaniard is now looking a lot more tenuous.

This relative closeness in the F1 championship is the undoubted upside for the Formula One fan—together with the fact that they do it all again next week in Monza.

In part 2 of this series of midseason reflections, we have a look at Felipe Massa and assess whether Ferrari are likely to keep him for the 2013 season.

Despite a slight upturn in form between the Monaco and British Grand Prix—sixth around the principality, fourth at Silverstone, and he was busy setting fastest laps in fifth position at Montreal before he spun on Lap 6—2012 has still not seen the results Ferrari expect from Felipe Massa.

A winner of 11 races, Massa has not been on the podium since the Italian Grand Prix in 2010, and this in a period during which his teammate won six races.

Many would point to Massa’s major accident in 2009—when a spring from Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn came loose and smashed through Massa’s helmet at more than 100 mph—as the turning point in the Brazilian’s ability to win races.

There is, of course, a great deal of merit to that theory. The incident was described as “life-threatening” at the time and Massa went from a race-winning, almost championship-winning driver in 2008 to a man whose very existence in Formula One is now being questioned.

This does ignore the fact that, when the car has been good, Massa’s still been capable of producing results.  At his first race back after the accident, he qualified second, ahead of his two-time world champion teammate Fernando Alonso, and he was on course for a victory in the 2010 German Grand Prix before the infamous “team orders” scandal reared its head.

Has it really ever been any different for Massa?  In each of his race-winning years prior to the incident, the Ferrari was arguably the class of the field, and Massa was still more likely to be found leading a race from the front than dragging his car up through the field or conquering treacherous conditions better than his competitors.

Since 2008, Ferrari have not once had the dominant package, and it may well be that Massa never possessed the abilities to transcend the capabilities of inferior technology.

Making the difference

There are very few that can, of course.  In fact, whilst the phrase “out-performing the car” is one often bandied around in Formula One, it is not physically possible to make a car go faster than its performance limit.  But there are those who can consistently lap at or near that limit, thereby maximizing the potential of their car and capitalizing on the mistakes of others.

Massa’s first Ferrari teammate, Michael Schumacher, was one such driver, and the last of Schumacher’s victories, in the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix, underlined this point: the “Regenmeister” dragged uncompetitive Bridgestone intermediate tires to victory, making the most of Renault’s technical issues, whilst Massa toiled in the midfield before eventually retiring.

Unfortunately for Massa, his current teammate Alonso is another such driver.

That Massa’s current car, the F2012, hasn’t yielded him much success in the first half of the season wouldn’t have been much of a surprise to those predicting 2012 form based on preseason testing. The  car was handling badly, overheating tires and turned up for the season opener in Australia around 1.5 seconds off the pace in qualifying.

What would have left the same sages gobsmacked, however, is that Alonso leads the championship by 40 points going into the summer break.  As remarkable as Alonso’s achievements have been, it shows what results the F2012 is capable of achieving given the correct circumstances.

That Massa’s points tally is only 15 percent of Alonso’s paints the Brazilian in a very dim light.

Who else?

And yet this was the man who bested Kimi Raikkonen as his Ferrari teammate in 2008 and beat him on many occasions during the “Flying Finn’s” world championship year of 2007. This leads us to the ultimate question that arises from this appraisal: Which available Formula One driver could do better in 2013? 

Ferrari do not intend to build a bad car next year—no one ever does—and with the right technology Massa does know how to win. How many available candidates can say the same?

The obvious choice to drive the car quickly is Lewis Hamilton, and having still not signed a new contract with McLaren, he may well be available in 2013.  But his tumultuous relationship with Alonso necessitates an entire article of its own, not to mention that a lifelong McLaren man like Hamilton might struggle within the very different, very Italian, confines of the Scuderia.

Robert Kubica would surely have been on top of Ferrari’s wish list—prodigiously quick and friends with Alonso to boot—but he’s had his own debilitating injury, with no guarantee of ever regaining the dexterity required for Formula One. 

Which leaves us with unproven talents—Sergio Perez, Nico Hulkenberg or Paul Di Resta—or the nostalgic and nationalistic choices—Rubens Barrichello or Jarno Trulli.

No matter who Ferrari decide is best to partner Alonso for 2013, the popular opinion is that they’d be little more than a seat-warmer anyway, with Sebastien Vettel having some kind of (intriguingly vague) pre-contract for 2014.

Ferrari may well decide that, for the short term at least, it’s better the devil you know.

Before the start of the season, I highlighted six drivers who had a lot to prove going into 2012. The article can be found here.

The mid-season break is as good a time as any to revisit those men to see how they're progressing. First, let's take a look at Felipe Massa.

Background

Massa entered 2012 on very thin ice. He could—and probably should—have been dropped at the end of last year following an extremely disappointing 2011.

The Ferrari was the third-best car, occasionally the second-best, but Felipe's best finishing position in any race was fifth.

The year before hadn't been much better. While teammate Fernando Alonso battled for (and probably should have won) the title, Massa was a distant sixth place overall.

Since returning from the injuries he sustained at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, Massa had started 38 races, won none (though he gifted the 2010 German Grand Prix to Alonso) and scored just five podiums.

His performances were far from good enough.

2012

The Ferrari was a very poor car at the start of the season. While Alonso managed to drag it around the track at a reasonable speed, Massa simply couldn't handle it.

This was somewhat expected; only the very best drivers can take a bad car and make it respectable.

But in a field with mere tenths separating the front-runners and the midfield, the size of the gap was just too big. After just two races, the knives were out, and lists of potential replacements were already being compiled.

After five, it seemed almost certain that he'd lose the seat at the end of the year—and possibly sooner.

Then Massa enjoyed a mini-revival at the sixth race, Monaco. He pretty much matched Alonso lap-for-lap most of the weekend, and finished close behind his teammate. That's exactly where Ferrari want him.

His pace was decent in Canada too, but an error early in the race put him into a spin and he fell from fifth to 11th, losing any chance of a podium finish. He'd demonstrated good pace at two very different circuits.

He wasn't especially poor at Valencia, either. The results say he finished a lap down while Alonso won, but on this occasion, Felipe was blameless. It was a combination of track debris, Kamui Kobayashi and a badly-timed (for him) safety car which left Massa a distant 16th.

And in the British Grand Prix, Massa qualified well in the rain and came home in fourth place, his best result of the season. In fact, it was his best result since 2010.

But one decent finish didn't prove a great deal. Felipe needed two good races before the summer break (a point at which a team may, if they haven't already, make a decision about their driver lineup for the next year).

In Germany, a first-lap accident dropped Massa to the rear of the field and he could only fight back to finish 12th. And in Hungary, a poor start from seventh left the Brazilian ninth after the first lap.

A race distance later, that was where he finished.

Has he proved a point?

The improvements in pace Massa has shown as the season has progressed won't harm his cause. In terms of pure pace, he appears to be largely within the window Ferrari want him operating in—within a few tenths of Alonso, with occasional blips.

Trouble is, he just isn't getting it done in the races. The pace he has means nothing if he can't convert it to good finishes.

It's true that he's had some poor luck here and there—Valencia, for example—but in Formula 1, a driver makes a lot of his own luck. If someone runs into trouble, it's usually because he put himself in trouble's way.

It doesn't matter that Felipe can point to a timesheet and say he was only 0.143-seconds slower than his teammate over the course of a lap.

What matters is the fact that, since he became able to drive the car at a half-decent pace (Monaco onwards), Massa has scored 23 points.

Alonso has scored 103.

I don't think he's done enough—and if he's still in F1 next year, it'll be a huge surprise.

Follow me on Twitter if you wish, @JamesNeilsen

Fernando Alonso is having a very good year.

He is leading the 2012 Formula 1 Championship by a healthy 34 points in what most pundits agree is an inferior car compared to the Red Bull and McLaren machines.

With three race wins, he has won more races than any other driver this year. He has also been remarkably consistent, finishing in the points in every race—a feat unequaled this season.

It has been a deliberate ploy.

YallaF1.com quotes Alonso from the Hungarian Grand Prix driver’s press conference,

“We need to maximise what we have at every race; maybe sometimes that means a podium, or sometimes a fifth or seventh place. We can’t afford to make mistakes and it’s much too early to think of the championship, with Red Bull, McLaren, Lotus and Mercedes all in contention,”

At only halfway through the season, it is obviously far too soon to be making title predictions. But Alonso has offered a rare insight into what is motivating his current exceptional form.

He wants to emulate his childhood idol, Ayrton Senna.

At the same press conference, Alonso said,

“Winning a third championship would be very important. It would mean I have the same as Ayrton who was my idol and my reference point when I was in karts and also it would make me the same as other names such as (Niki) Lauda. I hope it comes sooner rather than later!”

Senna and Lauda aren’t bad benchmarks to set yourself to, but should he be aiming a little higher?

While Alonso may have been inspired by Senna, he is more readily likened to Senna’s greatest rival, Alain Prost.

Alonso has a similar no-nonsense approach to his craft—he lacks the flair and flamboyance of the Brazilian and instead has been gifted with the clinical and analytical approach of the Frenchman.

He also has the same ability to complain loudly when things don’t go quite the way that he thinks they should.

Of course, Prost won four titles, so Alonso will need to set his sights a little higher to achieve that milestone. On current form, he’s quite capable of that—he just needs a car that will give him half a chance.

The reality is, however, that while Alonso is in a rich vein of form, he is also facing a grid with five other world champion drivers—Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen—all of whom are rather keen to claim this year’s championship too.

The fun thing is that this year we’ve seen that anything can happen. So while Alonso is the top rooster at the moment, in two races he could end up being a feather duster.

We’ll all just have to wait and see.

Either Stefano Domenicali is a hypocrite, or he thinks we’re all idiots.

The Ferrari boss has come out with an incredibly disingenuous defence of struggling driver Felipe Massa, telling ESPNF1.com that Ferrari are out to protect Massa, no matter what.

We need to believe that Felipe can do the right job for the team and that's why we always said there's no pressure in that respect. We want for him to realise that he is part of us and we will protect him in all conditions. I'm sure that he will give back what the team is giving to him.

While their faith in the diminutive Brazilian is heartwarming, it’s also incredibly difficult to believe.

TheF1Times.com reported that Red Bull driver Mark Webber has openly admitted to being approached by Ferrari to join the team in 2013.

Domenicali has also loudly proclaimed his admiration for Vettel and stated that the German would be a good fit alongside Fernando Alonso.

ESPNF1.com reports him as saying, "I think they are both intelligent guys and they could easily coexist together."

Although Vettel has told ESPNF1.com that he has no formal agreement with Ferrari—either written or verbal—he has not denied talking to the Maranello outfit.

Not that the list stops with Vettel and Webber, either. The rumour mill had also had Sergio Perez—a Ferrari development driver—as a likely replacement, and also out-of-work drivers Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli as likely successors, according to YallaF1.com.

The message is clear—anyone but Felipe.

Massa's not helping himself, either. His sporadic bursts of form are followed by ineptitude or bad luck on the race track.

Massa has set himself an unachievable goal for the remainder of the season. He has boldly proclaimed that his target is to finish in the top five or six in the championship. Really!

He would be much better setting himself an achievable target like winning the 100-meter dash at the upcoming London Olympics.

Does he really think that he can go from his current 14th place to the top five?

Maybe if he contacts the idiots who threw tacks on the road at the Tour de France and get them to pay a visit to Red Bull...and McLaren...and Lotus-Renault...and Mercedes...and Sauber, all of whom have two drivers above him in the championship standings.

On current form, he would struggle if he challenged himself to get to the third qualifying session each race and then finish in the points.

He has, however, got one thing absolutely correct: Alonso needs someone to support him to claim the championship.

Unfortunately for Alonso, however, he's stuck with Massa. He’d better come up with a plan to win it all by himself.

Six races down and 14 to go and the 2012 F1 season could not be more open. So far, there have been six different winning drivers and five different winning cars from the first six races, a sequence of results which has given the F1 Standings a completely different look from 12 months ago, when Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel dominated the sport virtually all year.

This year, the reigning world champion, Vettel, lies in 2nd place alongside teammate Mark Webber with 73 points. Both are three points behind the current leader, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.

Hamilton is the only driver in the Top 4 not to have won a race this year, but his three podium finishes have kept him amongst the early pace setters.

Before the season, many were predicting that the Red Bull team would once again dominate in 2012. That, of course, still might prove to be the case. They lead the Constructors' Standings with 146 points, a healthy 38 points clear of McLaren and their two drivers in the Top 3.

However, there were not too many predicting that Fernando Alonso would be at the top of affairs for Ferrari at this stage of the championship, with most believing that there was still much work to do on their cars. Should improvements on the Italian manufacturer's car still be forthcoming, then Alonso, who won the Malaysian Grand Prix, could be the driver everyone has to beat between now and the season's conclusion in November.

If Ferrari has a worry, it will concern the performances of their number two driver, Felipe Massa, who is down in 14th place in the Drivers' Standings with a mere 10 points.

It is not just Ferrari and Alonso who are surprising the F1 world either. The Lotus team of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean have joined the battle. The two drivers sit in 6th and 8th place in the standings with 51 points and 35 points, respectively. Former world champion Raikkonen has been on the podium twice, which has helped get his Lotus team into 4th place in the Constructors' Standings.

There was also the brilliant strategic win by Pastor Maldonado for the Williams team over Ferrari in Spain, which gave one of the iconic teams of the sport its first F1 win since 2004. It was also a maiden win for Maldonado, who now sits in 9th place in the standings with 29 points.

It had been expected that the Mercedes team of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher would be contesting for the top spot this year, but they continue to struggle.

The problem seems to be with Schumacher, who has scored only two points all season, whereas Rosberg has amassed 59 points and is in 5th place. Meanwhile, the team sits in 4th place in the Constructors' table, 25 points adrift of the Lotus and Ferrari teams.

It is surprising that there have been no wins for Hamilton, but his McLaren teammate, Jenson Button, won the opener in Australia. Button, however, has been largely disappointing. Hamilton has been far more consistent in both practice and in the races themselves. Button has 45 points and is in 7th place, while Hamilton is 18 points clear of him in 4th.

The 2012 Formula One World Championship is the most open it has been for many years, and it is refreshing that no one team or driver looks set to dominate. This should make for a thrilling final two thirds of the season.