I felt it showed a certain contempt for their drivers too - I don't think either of them were entirely comfortable with that.
And it was so unnecessary; strangely, it showed both a supreme arrogance and a curious lack of confidence that they were not going to dominate the season anyway.
Hmmm. remeber 1999 and how Michael was out of the championship that year?
As disgusting as it was in Austria in both 2001 and 2002, they did at least showed that they had learned from that 1999 experience.
Or another great example as of why they did it.
1991: Senna won the first four races in the season but from race 5 on Willimas was capable top take McLaren on and with a bit more reliability Mansell might have stolen that title away from Senna after all.
2007: Button/Brawn GP was overwhelming dominant in the first half of the season but the second half the were much more vulnerable and lost a number of races from then on.You can't be sure that you can keep the advantage you have early on.
I can understand why ferrari did it, I don't agree with it however from a sportman point of view. But it is comes to assist success guaranteed, it was indeed an option to choose for.
Henri