The revival of Ferrari continued with a convincing 1-2 in the German Grand Prix. The race was won by Fernando Alonso in somewhat controversial fashion. 

The Hockenheim track is not a great one for racing. The track has a nice layout and is in a beautiful area, but the tarmack itself is very thin. This makes passing very hard, which made the start of the race very bizarre. For the second race in a row, pole sitter Sebastian Vettel appeared to panic and then try to cut off the second position car. It left the door open this time for Massa to storm from third to first and Alonso was able to outpace Vettel for second. 

The rest of the race was fairly pedestrian until the latter quarter of the race. Then the “controversy” started. Alonso caught up to Massa who was having problems with his tires. Felipe was basically ordered to let him pass, which is of course against team orders. Felipe did so by slowing dramatically and the controversy was on. 

Felipe has every right to be unhappy, but the outrage from other teams and the media is too funny. Do you really believe team orders don’t happen in Formula One? How is it that Webber was suddenly told to save fuel in Turkey while Vettel was not? Team orders have long been a part of F1. Ferrari handled it very poorly, but if anyone thinks Alonso is not the number one driver at Ferrari, they are smoking some funny oregano!

There really weren’t any great drives. Some might say Massa, but I say why? He had a straight shot to the first position at the start after Vettel dove to the inside to try to block Alonso. All and all, this was a pedestrian race and was only saved by the supposed Ferrari controversy. 

Sebastian has tremendous talent, but it is becoming fairly obvious he is not ready yet to be a champion. His bizarre dash to cut off Alonso put him back in third. It was the second weekend in a row he had blown the pole position by the first corner. A very poor decision yet again. Once he did get rolling, he made no push to catch the Ferraris and just appeared to drive around and around. Very disappointing. 

Ferrari has been coming on for a few races, but suffered some bad luck to say the least. Obviously, this was a huge race for the team. Forget the controversy for a moment and think it through. The Scuderia dominated every part of the weekend with the exception of the pole. Once out front in the race, the Red Bull couldn’t make any dent on the their speed. When was the last time anyone saw that. 

The McLaren is simply missing grip. It is a great car on straight, fast circuits like Canada, but can’t handle tracks with turns like this one. The cars have been reliable, which give the team strong points positions. That being said, it is hard to see how McLaren can win everything unless they step up their game on tracks that are more technical. Fortunately, they seem to have at least started to get a handle on the “Red Bull exhaust” they’ve been trying to implement on the car. Now they can look for more speed by playing with the flooring. 

A dominant race for Ferrari. Is it a blip on the screen or something more? We have eight races left to see. I think the prancing horse is coming correct, but have doubts about the decision making of the team on the pit boards. We shall see.