The weekend began well for Ferrari, who have been struggling since Alonso won the first race of the season. Alonso had the fastest time in Friday practice, and his teammate Massa wasn’t far behind. The only team who seemed close was Red Bull, who have had the fastest cars most of the season.

But when qualifying came on Saturday, Alonso was beaten to pole position by Sebastien Vettel in his Red Bull by just .002 of a second – about 5 inches. The two McLaren drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, who are 1st and 2nd in the Driver’s Championship standings, were only third-best, qualifying 5th and 6th behind the two Red Bulls and two Ferraris.

Vettel Makes Another Bad Start
On Sunday afternoon Vettel made another bad start from pole position. Two weeks ago he had made a controversial squeezing move on his teammate Mark Webber at the start of the British Grand Prix. This week he made an even worse getaway and tried the same squeeze move on Alonso. That allowed Massa, who started third on the grid, to cruise past both drivers to take the lead in the first corner. Alonso refused to give way to Vettel and squirmed into second behind his teammate.

So began the essential drama of the race: would Alonso be able to pass Massa for the lead?

It is nearly impossible to pass in Formula 1. The cars are so sensitive to aerodynamics that running close to the car in front of you reduces the downforce on your wings, makes cornering slower and wears out your tires. You may be able to get close, but you can’t stay there for long and you can’t pass unless you are much faster.

Alonso had been the faster of the two Ferrari drivers all season , and still has a chance to win the Driver’s Championship. Massa has struggled all year to return from a season-ending accident which occurred exactly a year ago in Hungary. A two-pound spring from another car had bounced up and into his head, knocked him unconscious and into the barriers. It was a scary accident that left a scar over his eye.

So Massa was a sentimental favorite for many, coming back from adversity on the anniversary of his accident. But F1 is about business, not sentiment, and Alonso represents Ferrari’s best chance at the all-important Championship.

However, Massa initially seemed to be a bit faster than Alonso. His teammate did close up at one point, but was unable to pass. “This is ridiculous,” Alonso radioed to his crew. He couldn’t pass, and Vettel was just behind.

Once everyone had made pitstops for fresh tires Massa still had a lead of a few seconds. But around the mid-race point Alonso began closing the gap again. If he couldn’t get by in a couple of laps he would be forced to back off and out of the slipstream of Massa to save his tires and at least salvage second place.

Intra-team Battles
Teammate battles have been a theme all season. A few months ago Vettel tried to pass his teammate Webber for the lead and both cars crashed out of the race. Hamilton and Button have had a couple of close calls as well.

Formula 1 teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars each season to field 2 cars for 19 races. Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren each employ hundreds of specialists and technicians. It is truly a team sport where the smallest mistake by one person can ruin the weekend, or the season, for all.

So letting two drivers from the same team battle it out on track when only one has a chance at the Championship doesn’t make sense from Ferrari’s point of view. Massa’s crew chief radioed to his driver “Okay, so Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you have heard that message?”

Massa confirmed by slowing down coming out of a corner and letting his teammate pass. The move was too obvious for many in the British media, who pretend Formula 1 is an individual sport between drivers, even though most of the teams and thousands of workers at those teams are based in England.

In 2002, after several years of blatant team orders from Ferrari that benefitted Michael Schumacher, the FIA instituted rules banning them. For the past eight years teams have used pitstops or other less obvious methods to control the finishing position of their drivers when it suited them.

Ferrari probably would have preferred that Massa be a little less obvious in letting Alonso by. They completed the race in first and second place with no chance of any passes being made on the tight circuit. When they got out of their cars Massa moped onto the podium for the victory celebration, avoiding eye contact with Alonso.

Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso don't look happy on the podium for 2010 German GP

FIA Fines Ferrari
It was all too much for the FIA, who announced later that evening Ferrari would be fined $100,000 for issuing team orders and referred to the World Motor Sports Council for further review of the case. Ferrari didn’t protest the penalty, but they insisted it was Massa’s decision.

Ferrari team manager Stephano Domenicali said after the race “We gave information to Felipe about what was the situation. Because we have already seen in the past that certain situations could not give the best result to the team. That was the information we wanted to give and we leave the drivers to understand and take notice of it in order to make sure the team, in terms of the gloabal results, gets the best.”

Ferrari President Luca Di Montezemolo put it more bluntly: “”I simply reaffirm what I have always maintained, which is that our drivers are very well aware, and it is something they have to stick to, that if one races for Ferrari, then the interests of the team come before those of the individual.”

Chris Horner, the team manager of Red Bull, who earlier in the season had let his two drivers race themselves into a crash, said “It’s a great shame for Formula 1 that the race was manipulated to give one driver a victory over the other.”

Two weeks ago Red Bull had a team orders controversy of their own when Vettel was given their one remaining new front wing instead of Mark Webber. The media complained that the team was favoring Vettel, who happened to have more Championship points than Webber at the time. Webber responded by beating Vettel in the race.

There are many ways to manipulate the results of a race. Perhaps what people are really complaining about is the lack of subtlety by the Italian team.

Front Wing Dispute
Some teams complained that Red Bull and Ferrari were using an illegal front wing that ran lower to the ground than allowed when the cars travelled at top speed, resulting in better aerodynamics and faster cornering speeds. In video shots during the race from the cockpit of Vettel’s car it was clear that the entire nose of the car was moving down as the speed increased. Any movement of wings is illegal. Pictures of the Red Bull and Ferrari were given to the FIA technical team to examine, but in the end both cars passed the tests all cars are subjected to during the weekend.

It is likely the teams will make some sort of compromise amongst themselves to stop using these types of wings, or the FIA will revise their measurement system to account for the movement of the entire nose. Usually when a team discovers some clever way to interpret the rules it may take a race or two for the other teams to figure out what they are doing and then copy it. We’ll either see everyone running these wings soon or the FIA will step in and reach a compromise.