The wrong order

Phil: Had to blog, to get something out of my system.

I was astonished to find myself actually agreeing with Eddie Jordan after today's race when he described the result - or, rather, the Ferrari team order that engineered the result - as repugnant.

Here's why I found myself booing the telly this afternoon as Alonso passed his teammate. Firstly, since Ferrari's similar exercise ensuring Schumacher scored more points than Barrichello in Austria in 2002, team orders have been illegal. Whether you say, 'your teammate is faster than you, let him through', or, 'your teammate is faster than you, do you understand?' it's still a team order. Nobody is seriously suggesting that Felipe's foot accidentally slipped off the throttle or that he allowed his teammate through on his own initiative.

Secondly, it was completely unnecessary. Apart from Alonso himself very few people give him a realistic chance of being champion this year. Even my co-blogger doesn't think so. Today's 25 points still leave him no higher than fifth in the title race, 34 points behind the championship leader Lewis Hamilton. The whole exercise was pointless.

Thirdly, today is the anniversary of Massa's accident in Hungary last year, which almost killed him. What better way to prove the doubters who thought he would never regain the form he had in 2008 than with a victory today?

Fourthly, Ferrari took their first 1-2 finish since the first race of the season today. How pleased did they look on the podium? Massa was understandably sullen, Alonso embarassed and Stefano Domenicali who collected the team 'honours' tried his best to put a brave face on the whole thing. Contrast that with Red Bull's effort after their 1-2 at Monaco which saw both drivers and most of the team in the swimming pool on the team's boat. The atmosphere today reminded me more of a race where a driver has crashed and been and helicoptered to hospital, and nobody knows how he is, and they don't feel like celebrating.

Hopefully the stewards will investigate this incident after the race. But they had plenty of opportunity to do so during the race, and didn't.