It was always
Ferrari's intention for
Kimi Raikkonen to jump
Felipe Massa during the first round of pit-stops in last weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix – that is the view of former Jordan designer Gary Anderson, who suggests that team orders in
Formula 1 are far from dead.
Massa stormed to pole position in Sepang by almost half a second ahead of his team-mate, and narrowly held the Finn off in the run down to the first corner in the race. Having shadowed Massa all the way to the Brazilian's first pit visit on lap 17, however, a lightning in-lap for Raikkonen and tardy out-lap for the erstwhile leader saw the defending world champion emerge ahead, from where he would seamlessly pull away to victory.
While Raikkonen's triumph helped to erase the
Scuderia's painful memories from Melbourne, Massa went on to spin out of contention on lap 31, denying the team a dream one-two.
“The way in which Raikkonen went past Massa at the first stop makes me suspect that Ferrari had it planned from the outset,” Anderson told Swiss publication
Motorsport Aktuell.
The Irishman added that in his view Ferrari still operates a clear ‘number one' policy, endemic at Maranello since the Michael Schumacher era, when
Rubens Barrichello, Eddie Irvine and Felipe Massa all subserviently played second fiddle to the squad's favoured son, supporting the German along the way to five of his seven world championship successes.
“Don't forget, we are talking about a man [Raikkonen] who was brought in to replace the seven-time world champion
Michael Schumacher,” underlined Anderson, now an expert commentator on the top flight for
Setanta Sports. “For me, the key scene was the first corner, when Raikkonen was intelligent enough to not get involved in a collision with Felipe. Kimi always saw the bigger picture.”
