Schumacher backs Ferrari in orders row
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER has backed former team Ferrari in the team orders row, which marred Sunday’s German Grand Prix.
The Italian team were fined $10,000 by the FIA for asking Felipe Massa to make way for team-mate Fernando Alonso to pass and lead home a Ferrari 1-2 at Hockenheim.
But Schumacher, who was involved in a similar row at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when he passed Ferrari team-mate Rubens Barrichello on the line, insists anyone else would have done the same.
“I have been criticised in the past for exactly that and I understand 100 per cent and I would have done exactly the same if I were in their situation,” the seven-time world champion said.
“At the end of the day what we’re here for is fighting for a championship and there’s only one that can win the championship.
“By the end of the year if you think you’ve lost the championship for exactly that point you will ask yourself, not only yourself, all the fans and the journalists and so on, why didn’t you do so?”
Unsurprisingly, Ferrari’s tactic proved unpopular in the paddock with Red Bull chief Christian Horner accusing them of “manipulating” the race.
But the move has also led to calls from former team owner Eddie Jordan that the rule banning team orders, which came into play following the Schumacher incident at the A-1 Ring, should be dropped.
“It’s a nonsense, it should be repealed,” said Jordan. “Every team has to have team orders
and now they are just cloaked over as a guise. But fundamentally the regulators have to
sort that out.
“It has to go the world council and it has to be signed off. Ferrari probably thought they were above that and yesterday they found out that they weren’t.”