"Fernando is faster than you" - What was the team orders conspiracy involving Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, and Felipe Massa in 2010?

Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were involved in a major controversy back in 2010 when they were teammates at Ferrari. The dispute was regarding team orders that were given by the Italian team during the 2010 F1 German GP at Hockenheim.

Here is everything about the team order conspiracy involving Alonso, Massa, and Ferrari in 2010, which resulted in the FIA lifting a ban from their sporting regulation.

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Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, and Ferrari's team order controversy in the 2010 F1 German GP

Ever since 2002, the FIA has banned any kind of team orders from teams to their drivers during an F1 race weekend. This meant that no team could order drivers to switch positions or perform any other kind of trick.

In 2010, Sebastian Vettel was well on his way to winning his first world championship. In the German GP, he qualified on pole but did not get a good start off the start-finish line.

This allowed both Ferrari drivers, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, to overtake Vettel. After the first lap, Massa was leading the race, while Alonso was second.

Much later into the race, on lap 47, Alonso was quite close to Massa and was clocking faster lap times than him. Hence, the Brazilian's race engineer Rob Smedley came on the radio and simply said that Alonso was faster and asked Massa to confirm that he understood the message.

"OK. Fernando is faster than you. Confirm you understood the message?" Smedley asked.

After the team radio message, Felipe Massa suddenly slowed down at turn six, allowing Fernando Alonso to easily pass him. After the move, Smedley once again came on the radio and apologized to Massa, saying:

"Good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry."

Although there were no direct orders from the Ferrari pit wall, it was clear that the team was subtly nudging Massa to get the hint and follow a team order, which was to let Alonso through. Since this move was for a race win, it was even more surprising to witness.

After the race, team principal Stefano Domenicali, manager Massimo Rivola, and both Ferrari drivers were summoned by the stewards for a reported breach of sporting regulations. However, the Italian giants were only charged a $100,000 fine for rule infringements. The stewards decided that the results of the race would be unchanged, cementing Fernando Alonso's win in Germany.

While Domenicali claimed that he was surprised when Felipe Massa slowed down, other team principals protested against Ferrari, saying that it was the most blatant team order ever.

At the World Motor Sport Council meeting in September, the tribunal decided to uphold the fine towards the team and asked the FOM to review the team order ban in the sporting regulation.

In December 2010, the FIA decided to lift the ban on team orders since it was difficult to enforce on every occasion.