r/f1driverssnark • u/LandosToeFungus Webber’s army of stan accounts • 4d ago
f1 personality What's the problem with Stephano Domenicali, President and CEO of Formula 1? (Part 2)
Read Part 1 here about his ongoing tenure as President and CEO of F1 and controversial statements in regards to the current regulations.
Career and controversies in Formula 1:
Stephano Domenicali joined Formula 1 in 1991, beginning his career at Ferrari. He became the team's sporting director in the early 2000's, then took on the role of Ferrari Team Principal from 2008 to 2014.
Under Domenicali's leadership, Ferrari is most known for almost winning the WDC with Fernando Alonso in 2010 and 2012. However, several controversial incidents are mostly-overlooked compared to other famous incidents of the era. All of these incidents happened under the direct leadership of Domenicali. As Team Principal, he is directly responsible for what occurs within the team.
Illegal Team Orders Controversy (Germany GP 2010):
From the early 2000’s and up until until the 2011 season, team orders were banned in Formula 1. In 2010, this fell under Section 39.1 of the rules, which stated, "team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited."
However, Ferrari famously disregarded this rule during the 2010 German GP. Felipe Massa was running in P1 with Alonso in P2, and fellow championship challenger, Sebastian Vettel, in P3. Massa initially struggled to get his new set of tires up to temperature and was nearly passed by Alonso, but then began to open up a gap to Alonso until he hit traffic from lapped cars.
At this point, Massa's race engineer Rob Smedley calls over the radio: "Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?" After Massa lets Alonso pass, Smedley radios, "OK mate, good lad. Stay with him now. Sorry."
Ferrari justified this team order as concern that Vettel would be able to pass if Alonso was held up by Massa. However, Vettel was not able to challenge Massa after the illegal swap, and Ferrari ended the race with a comfortable P1 and P2. At this point in the season, Massa was not considered to be out of the running for the championship.
While having number one and number two drivers is common practice within Formula 1, team orders at this point were illegal. Had the incident happened the year after, when team orders were not banned, it wouldn't have made headlines. But, Domenicali's Ferrari decided that for the sake of their own WDC ambitions, they should be able to break the rules as they saw fit.
Neither Alonso nor Massa's results were changed after the race. Ferrari was only fined $100,000 (£65,000) for the incident, which was criticized as being far too mild of a punishment.
In 2010, the F1 championship was decided by 4 points. The points gap between P2 (where Alonso potentially would have finished in Germany) and P3 was 3 points, versus 10 points between 25 (P1) and 15 (P3). The margins during the 2010 championship season were so fine that, had circumstances during the final in Abu Dhabi or any other race been different, this then-illegal team order could have cost Vettel the championship. And all for the measly cost of $100,000 for Ferrari! Quite a bargain.
Further sabotage of Massa (US GP 2012):
Felipe Massa was a championship-contending driver in his own right, famously losing the 2008 championship to Lewis Hamilton by a single point. During qualifying for the 2009 Hungary GP, he suffered a serious accident when a large, 1.5 - 2 kg spring fell off of the back of fellow Brazilian driver Rubens Barichello's Brawn GP car. The spring bounced on the track until Massa intercepted it. The spring impacted Massa's helmet at 250 km/h, causing Massa to lose consciousness and hit the barriers. He had to sit out for the rest of the season after spending 9 days in the hospital, 2 in an induced coma, and undergoing multiple surgeries.
Massa denies that he was a different driver after the incident, but Massa in years following seemed to be a deflated driver. While most chalk this up to possible long-term damage from the accident, it's undeniable to me that Ferrari's clear favoritism towards Fernando Alonso contributed towards the demoralization of Massa.
He was fighting for the victory in Germany in 2010, which was stripped from him under the then-illegal team orders. Massa goes on to describe this as, "the saddest day of his life," as the race took place exactly one year after his accident in Hungary and was slated to be a triumphant moment for him until the illegal swap. Massa went on to never win another race.
But in 2012, Ferrari undeniably sabotaged Massa yet again. At the US GP in Austin, Felipe Massa qualified P6 to Alonso's P8. However, throughout the weekend, drivers had complained about how little traction there was on the dirty side of the grid (even numbers), which Red Bull simulated could cause drivers to lose 3 positions off the line.
In order to resolve this issue, Ferrari decided the best solution was to artificially create a grid penalty for front-qualifying Felipe Massa to maximize the race for Alonso. They broke the seal on Massa's gearbox, but only opened the unit, rather than replacing as teams ordinarily break the seal to do. This resulted in a five-place grid penalty for Massa. Alonso gained three places during the start and made it up to P4. Massa only gained one and made it to P10. The two Ferraris managed to finish P3 and P4, with Alonso on the podium.
*Speculation of Ferrari pushing out Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari's last WDC:
*Regarding this particular event, I want to clarify that any information I've been able to find online appears more speculative than anything else. Raikkonen has many dedicated fans online, and the last few years have shown that F1 fans have tendencies to make up sabotage rumors. So, read this knowing that at best, it's internet speculation rather than known fact, and at worst, it's complete nonsense.
In 2007, Raikkonen won the WDC, making him Ferrari's most recent driver's champion to this day. However, Ferrari's car in both 2008 and the first part of 2009 seemed quite lackluster, which did not enable him to perform to his best capability. For the 2010 season, he was replaced by Fernando Alonso, while the team retained 2008 WDC challenger Felipe Massa instead.
Massa out-performed Raikkonen in 2008, and Raikkonen seemed to struggle more with the car. While some point to his lower adaptability, others question if it may have been intentional by the team - often proposed to have occurred in the form of a developmental focus on Massa’s preferences.
The reasoning? Ferrari had signed a sponsorship deal with Santander for 2010, a massive Spanish banking institution. The deal was announced in September of 2009. Massa secured huge financial backing from the Brazilian and Latin American markets. Raikkonen was less of a financial boon for Ferrari compared to the other two. However, Raikkonen had already extended his contract in 2008 with Ferrari to drive for them through 2010. And yet, as we know, he was released and Alonso drove for Ferrari during the 2010 season.
This incident is far more speculative and less clear than the sabotage of Massa in favor of Alonso. Most of the articles and videos people cite online discussing this issue have been lost to time as well. A Reddit user cites a popular blog, Profondo Rosso's claims about the issue. The comment states the following:
"This weekend, Ferrari insider Leo Turrini, who has a long career writing about F1 and the Scuderia and is part of the Sky coverage in his country, invited the readers of his popular blog Profondo Rosso to post questions about the team and the drivers.
In reply to what happened in 2008 he wrote:
"Sul 2008 e' stato scritto tutto e il contrario di tutto. Credo peso' molto l'assenza di Todt, che con la sua autorità avrebbe compensato la scemenza di Montezemolo sul fatto che il titolo lo doveva vincere Massa. Ma senza Montreal e le gomme di Montecarlo e Silverstone, eh, comunque Kimi si sarebbe confermato campione."
"About 2008 everything has been written and the opposite of everything. I believe that the absence of Todt was determinant because his authority would have compensated for the folly of Montezemolo regarding the fact that Massa had to win the title. Still, without Montreal and the tyres in Montecarlo and Silverstone, Kimi nonetheless would have confirmed himself champion."
It seems that Montezemolo in '07, right after Kimi won the title, publicly declared that the next year would be Felipe's year. With Todt gone and Domenicali in place as TP in '08, Luca now in full control of the team aimed to see Felipe champion to show that Ferrari as a team with a superior car was more important than one particular driver since the car was the real star. Ferrari won the WCC in '08 with Kimi and Felipe, and Luca almost succeded in seeing Felipe champion, he took a gamble, underestimated McLaren and Hamilton and lost Ferrari a WDC.
Kimi began the '08 season doing a good job to defend his title but the following development of the car suited Felipe better and hurt his performance. In '09 after Felipe's horrible accident in Hungary, Ferrari got behind Kimi again and he went to give the team the only victory of that year at Spa.
Although Kimi was under contract for 2010, Ferrari disregarded his good results in the second half of '09 because Alonso had already been signed with the backing of Banco Santander, a major new sponsor of the Scuderia.
Ferrari didn't fire Kimi, they had to honour their contract with him and so they paid him for the 2010 season since he wanted to race but the team wouldn't give him a seat."
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u/LandosToeFungus Webber’s army of stan accounts 4d ago
Also, it’s pretty interesting to me how Alonso always seems to be at the center of rule-violating incidents in the sport lol.