Fernando Alonso has secured his second victory of the 2010 F1 season, but it proved to be a somewhat hollow success after team-mate
Felipe Massa was told to allow the Spaniard through.
At the start of the race, Massa had jumped into the lead with pole-sitter
Sebastian Vettel being so focused on defending from Alonso that he failed to notice the Brazilian blasting up the outside on the run into turn one.
Alonso got ahead of Vettel into the opening corner to put the Ferraris into first and second and the top three managed to break away from the chasing pack, which was headed by the
McLaren of Lewis Hamilton.
Hamilton had battled ahead of
Mark Webber on the opening lap of the race after going down the inside into the hairpin, with Webber running fifth and
Jenson Button sixth – the defending champion having been forced to lift off at turn one to avoid running into the rear of Vettel's Red Bull.
After the top three made their stops, Alonso was able to put Massa under pressure as the Brazilian struggled to come to terms with the harder compound tyres with Alonso making a move for the lead on lap 20 as they pair lapped Bruno Senna and
Timo Glock heading into the hairpin.
Massa was able to retain his lead and a series of quick laps allowed him to open up an advantage of more than three seconds, before Alonso responded to bring the gap back down as the two leaders made their way through the backmarkers. Vettel meanwhile had been close to the squabbling Ferraris before losing time passing Senna having been lucky to avoid running into the Hispania man.
It looked like Massa was set to celebrate the first anniversary of his accident in Hungary with a popular victory, before race engineer Rob Smedley came on the radio to tell the Brazilian that 'Fernando is faster than you. Confirm you understand'.
While team orders may be banned, ironically as a result of Ferrari's actions in the past, it appeared to be a clear request for the Brazilian to cede position and on lap 49, he slowed exiting the hairpin to allow Alonso through – with Smedley then coming back on the radio to tell his driver he was sorry.
Alonso pulled away from Massa through the closing laps of the race to take the chequered flag just over four seconds clear of his team-mate, with Vettel closing on the Brazilian through the final laps of the race to finish a second further back. The German managed to secure the fastest lap of the race as he attempted to fight his way up to second place.