Masa still dogged by team orders to give way

Felipe Massa says he doesn't believe in ghosts but on the 52nd lap of Sunday's Formula One Malaysian Grand Prix, he could have been forgiven for thinking that he heard one that has been haunting him since the German GP at Hockenheim four years ago.

"Felipe, Valtteri is faster than you. Don't hold him up."

That was the message relayed to the cockpit of his Williams Martini FW36 as team-mate Valtteri Bottas came storming up behind him.

It's the message every driver secretly dreads. The first time Massa heard it was in that German GP in 2010.

Then, a year since the horrible accident in Hungary which might have killed him, when a suspension spring from Rubens Barrichello's Brawn hit him on the head, the Brazilian seemed set for a fairy-tale return to Victory Lane.

Then, he was told to get out of team-mate Fernando Alonso's way and let the Spaniard win. At the time, it didn't matter that Alonso had not been able to overtake him - he had the better chance of winning the title, so he was the favoured son.

"Fernando is quicker than you," his engineer Rob Smedley was instructed to tell him. Massa ignored the message.

"Fernando is quicker than you," Smedley repeated.

Then, at the team management's behest, Smedley was instructed to add a key extra word in case it hadn't been clear to Massa precisely for whom the message was intended.

"Felipe, Fernando is quicker than you."

That day was a turning point in Massa's career. For the first time since he joined Ferrari in 2006, racing against Michael Schumacher, it was being made clear to him that he was the No. 2 driver.

For a man who had beaten both Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen, and for 38 seconds seemed to have won the 2008 world championship - until Lewis Hamilton overtook Sebastian Vettel in the dying seconds to finish fifth in the season's last race and take the title instead - it was a bitter pill.

Now, reborn by his switch to Williams, he was hearing that ghost again.

Early in the race, Williams had resisted Bottas' request to move Massa over as they both chased Jenson Button's slower McLaren. Now the Finn was given the all-clear to pass him so that on tyres that were slightly fresher - hence his superior pace - he could challenge Button.

"Valtteri, you are faster - overtake."

Massa, however, resisted and, instead of perhaps taking sixth and seventh places and 14 points, the Williams duo stayed behind Button and took 10 for seventh and eighth.

"Felipe did not do what we would have preferred him to do," Williams engineer Rod Nelson admitted diplomatically, before revealing that the plan had been to reverse the positions again before the finish, had Bottas also been unable to pass Button.

"Felipe was running fairly high temperatures on his engine and we were a little bit concerned about it, and Valtteri had much fresher tyres than Jenson did.

"We thought that it would be good to give Valtteri a go at getting past Jenson.

"Then, if he hadn't achieved that within two or three laps, we would have swopped our drivers over again and everyone would have been happy."

In the old days, such manoeuvring, which is perfectly legal, was called team orders.

Notable examples were at the 2002 Austrian GP when runaway leader Barrichello was instructed by Ferrari boss Jean Todt - now president of the FIA - to let a beaten Schumacher win.

Or David Coulthard being threatened with the sack if he didn't give way to McLaren partner Mika Hakkinen in Spain in 1997 so that the Finn could score his first victory.

Nowadays, it's dressed up as strategic decision-making based on the relative performance of both cars. "It's not a big deal, every team does it," Nelson shrugged.

Of course, last year's Malaysian GP saw Vettel take a tarnished victory after disobeying orders from Red Bull boss Christian Horner to stay behind team-mate Mark Webber.

It remains to be seen whether relations between Massa and Bottas cool after Sunday's battle.

But Williams are no stranger to acrimonious driver relationships. Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet loathed one another in 1986 and '87. And none of their pairings was more fractious than that of Alan Jones and Carlos Reutemann.

In 1981, the Argentinian refused to make way for the Australian in the Brazilian GP.

Later, when he sought to bury the hatchet, Jones replied pithily: "I'd be happy to bury it - in your back."

stsports@sph.com.sg

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