Romain Grosjean has admitted he didn’t try to keep his teammate Kimi Raikkonen behind him at the recent Bahrain grand prix.

In the wake of Lotus’ podium breakthrough, it was suggested Frenchman Grosjean was the victim of team orders.

Team figures, including boss Eric Boullier and 2007 world champion Raikkonen who finished the race second ahead of rookie Grosjean, denied the charge, even though team orders are fully legal.

But it emerged this week that, just before Grosjean was passed by Raikkonen, the French driver was told on the radio: “Kimi is faster than you.

“Do not hold him up,” the radio message, broadcasted for the first time by F1′s official website this week, ended.

Onboard footage of the move also showed Raikkonen briefly waving to his teammate as he completed the easy pass, ostensibly to thank him.

“I think that if I had closed the door on Kimi, or if we had fought, then I could have lost a wing,” Grosjean said this week.

“We knew that we could have a podium as a result and I didn’t want to make a mistake. I didn’t race at my best level,” he admitted to RMC.

Romain Grosjean was given a familiar instruction by his team during the recent Bahrain grand prix.

The Finnish broadcaster MTV3 reports that the Frenchman was told that his teammate “Kimi (Raikkonen) is faster than you”.

“Do not hold him up,” the radio message reportedly ended.

In 2010, when team orders were still illegal, Felipe Massa was famously told “Fernando (Alonso) is faster than you” shortly before the Brazilian gave up the lead of the race to Alonso.

Ferrari was fined $100,000.

Today, team orders are allowed, but Lotus denied it instructed Grosjean to let 2007 world champion Raikkonen pass before the Finn finished second in Bahrain.

“We don’t want to play team orders,” Lotus team principal Eric Boullier insisted in Bahrain, “so we let them race normally and what happened, happened.”

A trio of respected paddock regulars have played down the latest twist in the saga surrounding Lewis Hamilton’s difficult weekend in Singapore recently. The McLaren driver’s 2008 title nemesis Felipe Massa accosted Hamilton during a television interview after their clash that cost the Briton a drive-through penalty. But it has now emerged that, prior to the collision, Massa’s Ferrari race engineer Robert Smedley told the Brazilian over the radio to “destroy” Hamilton’s race. “Hold Hamilton as much as we can,” Smedley is heard saying on the official edit of the race published at F1′s official website. “Destroy his race as much as we can. Come on, boy!” added Smedley. The news has triggered suggestions in the international media that Massa, who last year obeyed Smedley’s opaque instruction to move over for Fernando Alonso, may have followed another ‘team order’ in Singapore. But former driver and British television commentator Martin Brundle wrote on Twitter that he is sure Smedley wanted Massa to “wreck Hamilton’s strategy, not his car”. “Why would Massa damage his own car intentionally? “(The) real story is Smedley must constantly direct and motivate his driver (and) has done for some time,” said Brundle. Daily Telegraph correspondent Tom Cary agreed that the radio message saga is “much ado about nothing” rather than a “sinister” anti-McLaren plot by Ferrari. “He (Smedley) said it on an open radio channel after all,” he said, admitting however that Smedley’s use of the word ‘destroy’ was “ill-advised”. Livio Oricchio, a Brazilian journalist for the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, also defended Massa and Smedley. “Anyone who understands how things work in formula one and have a modicum of common sense knows that reactions like that of Smedley are normal during a race and more frequent than you might think,” he said. “‘Destroy Hamilton’s race’ doesn’t mean ‘destroy Hamilton’, so the disclosure of the (radio) recording has no great meaning,” added Oricchio.

Ferrari argued on Wednesday that Felipe Massa decided to let Fernando Alonso pass him for the race lead at Hockenheim because the Brazilian was angry.

As was rumoured before the World Motor Sport Council’s disciplinary sitting in Paris, the Maranello based team rejected the charge that it imposed an illegal team order that deprived Massa of the German GP victory.

Carlos Gracia, president of Spain’s motor racing federation, was present for the hearing, and later revealed the apparent thrust of Ferrari’s argument to Spanish radio Cadena SER.

“Massa was told that he was slower than Alonso to motivate him,” said Gracia.

“Angered by the message, Massa decided to slow down, and this led to the suspicions (about team orders),” he added.

Gracia also revealed that he has spoken to Alonso, who knows “nothing” about the imposition of a team order.

The FIA would not be “wise” to severely punish Ferrari at Wednesday’s disciplinary hearing.

That is the opinion of 1996 world champion Damon Hill, who at Spa in 1998 won the Belgian grand prix after then team boss Eddie Jordan ordered teammate Ralf Schumacher to hold station.

But that was before F1′s governing body banned team orders in 2002, after Ferrari so crudely ordered Rubens Barrichello to give up a deserved win to Michael Schumacher in Austria.

The Italian team imposed a similar order at Hockenheim in July, in the form of Rob Smedley’s radio message to Felipe Massa that “Fernando is faster than you”.

According to Britain’s Daily Express, Ferrari has “spent a lot of time” since Hockenheim quietly explaining that its behaviour was not unusual.

The newspaper said McLaren sent a coded message to Lewis Hamilton in one race, informing the British driver that the “cat was out of the house” before he drove past compliant former teammate Heikki Kovalainen.

“Every team in the pitlane gives team orders,” David Coulthard is quoted by the Wall Street Journal.  “Anyone who says they don’t is lying.”

It’s for that reason that Hill, speaking to the Telegraph, thinks the World Motor Sport Council should go easy on Ferrari.

“(The FIA) flexing their muscles because they can is not necessarily wise,” he said, when considering a severe sporting sanction as the potential outcome of the hearing.

“I don’t think a punishment that big would fit this particular crime,” added Hill.

Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport is hoping not only that Ferrari escapes Wednesday intact, but that the team order regulation is looked at in order to spare teams from having to sidestep it.

“Perhaps there can be a clarification which overcomes this hypocrisy, so that team orders are allowed as long as they don’t harm other competitors,” said the sports daily.

Lotus boss Mike Gascoyne technique could not believe his eyes when Felipe Massa at Hockenheim after the hairpin curve on the gas, went to his Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso to leave the leadership. Gascoyne also felt Spielberg in 2002 and recalls Jean Todt’s famous radio message, “Rubens, let Michael pass for the championship.” But Gascoyne was less shocked by the new stable government, but more than the obvious way.

“What happened in 2002 was more than obvious, but that was no less clear, except that it has not happened before the finish. One would think that Ferrari has learned from it, but they have not done so obvious,” Gascoyne said to ‘BBC Sport’. Ferrari won the 2002 a fine of $ 500,000 aufgebrummt and provided with the then maneuvers that the stable direction is simply prohibited.

“We had already grinning. I think it has made on the pit wall for amusement. Because we knew what the waves will strike,” admits Gascoyne. “I think we all do that. But perhaps not so obvious and not at this stage of the season.”

Gascoyne points out that other teams have their drivers go against each other and gives the example of the duel of the two McLaren drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton in Turkey. “Teams like McLaren and Williams have always admitted, and therefore also lost track,” he explains.

“Ferrari has always regarded the matter as a team and makes the more cynical, too. But they should make it easy to skilful much,” marvels Gascoyne. “We have all the code words and we all make decisions on the pit wall – but we imagine it just not so stupid.”

“There are stable government and we must accept that they exist on. It has only been handled extremely poorly,” he says of the Ferrari Action at Hockenheim. It shows quite understand that the Scuderia will focus on one driver, even if it raises the question of whether this should be so early in the season of the case.

“Of course, comes during the season, the point at which you prefer a driver must be because he has the best chance of winning the title. We must do what is best for the team,” said Gascoyne. “In this case they would have fetched this way or that a double victory. But is now the right time to have been?”

For the Lotus chief technology the situation is clear: F1 is a team sport and the interests of the team are in the foreground. But if you apply to already banned team orders, then you should do “much smarter than they have done it. It is clear that the fans feel cheated when you make it so – that was just ridiculous.”

TMS

Ferrari has been fined $100,000 and now faces the wrath of the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council.

A furore erupted after Sunday’s German grand prix, in which Felipe Massa moved aside for winner Fernando Alonso after the Brazilian’s engineer told him the Spaniard was faster.

Team management, and later the drivers, were summoned by the stewards, where Ferrari blankly denied the incident was a clear breach of the rule prohibiting result-altering team orders.

The result stands, but a report will be sent to the FIA’s decision-making council, due to the alleged team orders breach and a charge of disrepute.

Ferrari denies that race engineer Rob Smedley’s radio message to Massa prior to the Brazilian letting Alonso pass amounted to team orders.

“It was a driver decision,” said spokesman Luca Colajanni. “We didn’t give any instruction at all.”

Team boss Stefano Domenicali added: “He (Smedley) gave the information that he (Massa) was slower than the other car. We give the information, it is up to the driver to manage the situation.”

Massa confirmed that he had decided to let Alonso overtake.

“Yes (it was my decision). We do not have team orders. I was struggling on the hard tyres, as I have many times this year.”

And Alonso denied he knew about the team order.

“I thought it was a gear problem (on Massa’s car). When I saw him slowing down, I was surprised,” said the Spaniard.

Jun.9 (GMM)  Jacques Villeneuve has become the latest pundit to comment on the crash between the Red Bull cars at the recent Turkish grand prix.

The aftermath of Sebastian Vettel’s clash with Mark Webber was highly controversial, as most outsiders initially blamed Vettel but Red Bull chiefs pointed the finger at Australian Webber.

It emerged that Webber’s engine was in a fuel-saving mode – although team figures initially refused to confirm that was the case – and that his engineer had declined to pass on a radio message advising him to let his young German teammate through.

Then, as the official line became more conciliatory, figures close to team owner Dietrich Mateschitz including Max Mosley and Gerhard Berger renewed the criticism of Webber, before the 33-year-old was re-signed for the 2011 season.

The latest twist is that Mateschitz’s right-hand man Dr Helmut Marko says the pair are still free to race, but must not stridently resist each other’s advances.

“Both cars were out in the lead, but drivers are drivers and it is always difficult for one to give 110 per cent while the other does not,” Villeneuve wrote in a column for rds.ca.

“After the race, the reaction of the team seemed strange — to assign fault to someone so quickly and categorically.

“But you never know what really happened when you’ve looked at the situation from the outside as I did,” added the 39-year-old French Canadian.

Meanwhile, 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen thinks the only lingering effect of the crash is that Vettel and Webber will from now on behave “a bit more carefully” when they are wheel-to-wheel.

“In a similar situation you would just behave a bit differently so that it doesn’t happen again,” the Red Bull-sponsored world rally driver told Austrian Servus TV.

“It was just an incident in the race and now it’s finished,” he added.

As Red Bull drew a line under the matter on Thursday, former FIA president Max Mosley waded into the debate about the collision between Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in Turkey.

After a meeting in Milton-Keynes on Thursday, the team issued a statement that included a jovial photo of the teammates with the caption ‘Shit happens’.

“I’m sorry for the team that we lost the lead of the race.  Mark and I are racers and we were racing,” German Vettel, 22, is quoted as saying.

With the blame-game apparently put to bed, Mosley however told the German newspaper Die Welt that he thinks the crash was Australian Webber’s fault.

Interestingly, 70-year-old Briton Mosley is a close friend and former F1 ally of Red Bull’s Austrian billionaire owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

Dr Helmut Marko, also Austrian and Mateschitz’s right-hand man on motor racing matters, also initially blamed Webber for the lap-40 shunt at Istanbul Park.

“From my perspective,” said former long-time FIA president Mosley, “I do not think that Sebastian Vettel should receive the blame for the collision.”

Mosley added: “At the time of the accident Vettel was clearly faster than Webber.  At this stage he (Vettel) had the right and the duty to overtake.”

Red Bull has revealed that Webber was running a fuel-saving engine setting while Vettel was not, and that the Australian radioed the pits to ask the McLaren-pressured Vettel to drop back.

Moreover, the team claims Webber’s race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam failed to pass on a radio message warning the 33-year-old not to repel an attack by Vettel, whose tyres were reportedly also in better shape than Webber’s.

Marko aside, most of the F1 world said it was Vettel who aggressively turned right whilst alongside the sister RB6 driven by Webber.

“I do not agree,” said Mosley, strongly siding with Marko, who along with team boss Christian Horner also attended Thursday’s clear-the-air meeting.

Said Mosley: “It can be clearly seen that Vettel had already passed Webber before the collision, and at that time Webber should have given him more space — especially as they were already on the far left side of the track.

“Now you could argue (about the blame) if it had not been Webber’s teammate, but as it was, he (Webber) should have respected his responsibility to the team.

“Remember, both cars were doing almost 300kph, so considering the risk, he (Webber) should have taken a chance to improve his position at another point in the race.”

When told by the Welt interviewer that the same rationale also applies to Vettel, Mosley answered: “The crucial point speaks for Vettel and against Webber — that one driver in this moment was fast, while the other was slow.”

Mosley, who speaks fluent German, also said he does not believe Red Bull’s apparent desire to see Vettel ahead of Webber amounts to illegal team orders.

“I cannot see that,” said the Briton.  “Vettel was under pressure from Lewis Hamilton, he was faster than Webber, and to shake off the McLaren he needed to pass the slower Webber.

“Even if this situation was declared to the drivers by radio, this would not be a team order or a manipulation of the drivers’ championship, but rather an explanation of a particular situation — (it is) necessary information for the drivers.”

Comparing the situation to Ferrari’s infamous place-swapping in Austria in 2002, Mosley said “one was a conscious manipulation of the world championship, the other is the legitimate explanation of a racing situation.”

(GMM)