Didnt Ted mention in FP1 that Vettel has something bout #1 in his contract with Ferrari?
Yup, talking absolute nonsense. Lewis, too.
You don't hire Kimi Raikkonen to play lapdog, sorry. It's BS. Nobody at Ferrari is #1. Not until a point in the season where it makes sense to.
Most suspicious seems ALO at Ferrari 2010-2014. Massa was given the order much sooner than in other circumstances (2007 for example); it was not a championship decider. And there was the previous history of ALO at McLaren, which makes it more likely that he went to Ferrari with the intention of avoiding a repeat of that. FA's attitude at China 2010 also was a show of prepotence hinting at his team status.
Nothing suspicious about 2010. The choice was made earlier because Alonso was already like 50 points behind in the championship. He was already on the edge of being a realistic title contender. Massa wasn't miles behind Alonso in the points, but he was far enough back from the lead title contenders that he could basically be ruled out, especially when Alonso had typically been outperforming him. Ferrari made a tough choice, but the right one.
As for other years, Alonso never got any preferential treatment til later in the year, when Massa proved himself incapable of keeping up with Alonso, which happened every year. Early in the season, you still saw the two racing and Ferrari never held Massa back to get Alonso ahead.
Basically, Alonso earned any preferential treatment he got season in, season out. Ferrari was very fair about it and there were no signs of any contractual favouritism.
Edited by Seanspeed, 18 April 2015 - 06:46.