Felipe Massa refused to let teammate Valtteri Bottas pass at Malaysian Grand Prix Both Williams drivers had disappointing results at Sepang By: GMM on March 31, 2014 Felipe Massa stayed in front of Valtteri Bottas in the final laps of the Malaysian Grand Prix. LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC - Felipe Massa stayed in front of Valtteri Bottas in the final laps of the Malaysian Grand Prix. Sepang, home of the Malaysian Grand Prix, is fast becoming the “team orders” capital of Formula One. Last year, not only did Red Bull’s infamous “Multi 21” affair make headlines, Nico Rosberg was also controversially ordered to stay behind his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton. The same did not happen in 2014. Hamilton easily dominated the grand prix ahead of Rosberg. The new “team orders” storm has been triggered by a tussle over seventh place after Felipe Massa was asked by Williams to move over. “OK Felipe, Valtteri [Bottas] is faster than you. Do not hold him up,” the Brazilian was told by radio. The order was eerily similar to the infamous “Fernando [Alonso] is faster than you” order issued by Ferrari some years ago, but this time, Massa was not listening. Having ignored the order once, Massa was told again, “Valtteri has better tires. We need to let him go. Do not hold him up.” Massa again ignored the order, holding station ahead of his Finnish teammate and failing to pass McLaren’s Jenson Button for sixth by the finish. “I have nothing to say,” Massa told the BBC afterward. “I was just fighting to the end. That’s the way I wanted to do it, and I will fight for my career and for what is right. “I don’t regret what I did. I have very good respect for the team, and I believe they respect me and that is very important,” he added. Speaking to Britain’s Sky, deputy team boss Claire Williams refused to rebuke Massa publicly, saying only that it had been “a difficult situation.” Bottas suggested he thinks Massa should have obeyed. “I think there was a really good chance for me to get Jenson. I was approaching really quickly but, like I said, we need to speak with the team,” he said. Niki Lauda, the Mercedes team chairman and also a triple drivers’ world champion, indicated he thinks Massa did nothing wrong. “It is something that could be a problem for us [Mercedes] in the future,” he said. “Racing drivers are racing drivers; they race for themselves. I would do exactly the same, and my drivers would do the same,” Lauda said. Read more: autoweek/article/20140331/f1/140339980#ixzz2xYuPcKmW Follow us: @AutoweekUSA on Twitter | AutoweekUSA on Facebook
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 17:22:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015