Shameful Ferrari

By lap 47, Ferrari had clearly decided to order Massa to move aside. His race engineer, Englishman Rob Smedley, broke the news in what the stewards interpreted in the only way they could, as code for 'let him pass'.

Smedley said slowly in his Middlesbrough drawl: 'OK, so, Fernando is faster than you.' On lap 48, he repeated: 'Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm that you understand that message.' On lap 49, Massa slowed to a crawl and Alonso breezed by. He went on to win, narrowing his deficit behind Hamilton to 21 points. Massa, a year to the day after a stray spring fractured his skull, was second. Vettel, after that wasteful start, was third.

The mood on the Ferrari pit wall and in Alonso's hug with Massa was half-hearted. The press conference that followed was absurd. Both drivers insisted team orders had not been issued, which is all the ink we will give to their contemptible argument.