Alonso takes controversial win in Germany

Fernando Alonso led a controversial Ferrari one-two on the finish line of the German GP as Felipe Massa was apparently told to hand him the lead in the second part of the race.

Sebastian Vettel had a poor start from pole position and did his best to protect his position but, as he moved to the right to block Alonso, Felipe Massa passed him to the left and took the lead.

Alonso rapidly took P2 away from Vettel and we had a Ferrari one-two at the end of the opening lap. Vettel held on to third despite a huge pressure from Hamilton in fourth. Webber was fifth ahead of Button.

There was some drama at the back of the field as Jaime Alguersuari hit his teammate Sébastien Buemi from behind. Having lost his rear wing in the incident, the Swiss returned to the pits and retired. Alguersuari subsequently pitted and rejoined the race. Having run over the debris, both Force Indias of Sutil and Liuzzi also pitted for a quick check.

Jarno Trulli retired on lap 2 with a gearbox problem. The race then settled down a bit with Massa setting the pace at the front. Vettel managed to shake Hamilton off as he pushed hard to stay close to the leading Ferraris.

As expected the first round of pit stops arrived early. Vettel kicked it off on lap 12. Alonso and Webber stopped on lap 13 while Massa and Hamilton waited for lap 14. Having not stopped, Jenson Button found himself leading from Massa, Alonso and Vettel.

Massa came under immense pressure from his teammate but did well to fend off the assaults of the Spaniard. He retook the lead on lap 22, as Button dived into the pitlane, and suddenly found more pace. He set a string of fastest laps to extend his lead over Alonso to three seconds.

His late stop allowed Button to jump Webber and he rejoined the race in P5 right behind his McLaren teammate Hamilton.

Responding to Massa’s fastest laps, Alonso upped the pace and had reduced the Brazilian’s lead to two seconds at the halfway point. The tussle between the Ferrari teammates continued as they traded the fastest time. Third-placed Vettel was unable to match their pace and slowly dropped away from the leaders. He was almost six seconds down on Alonso when he set a new fastest time on lap 42. The German kept the hammer down and set a string of fast laps to slightly reduce the gap to the Ferraris.

Meanwhile, Webber was told by his team to drop to four seconds behind Jenson Button. He was then advised to brake hard and late because of an engine oil problem on his car. In doing so, the Australian set his fastest lap of the race.

Up front, with 17 laps to go, Alonso was all over the rear of Massa and took the lead shortly after the Brazilian was told on the radio that the Spaniard was faster. This move was sure to stir some controversy… all the more after Smedley said ‘Sorry’ to his driver. Vettel took advantage of it to close the gap down to 2.9 seconds on Massa.

The Red Bull driver kept on pushing put couldn’t get close enough to pull a move on the Brazilian. He couldn’t prevent Ferrari from taking a one-two in Germany but scored 15 valuable points and set the fastest lap of the race on the very last lap.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were fourth and fifth for McLaren Mercedes. Mark Webber crossed the finish line in sixth place. Kubica, Rosberg, Schumacher and Petrov scored points.