Team orders, Lauda: “Ferrari will be punished”, Maranello replies

Niki Lauda believes Ferrari will be punished harshly by the World Motor Sport Council next month for implementing team orders at the recent German F1 Grand Prix. Ferrari was fined $100.000 after Felipe Massa gave way to Fernando Alonso and launched him to victory, but the case will now be heard by the FIA's supreme body on September 8, two days before the start of the Grand Prix of Italy.

“What they did in Hockenheim goes against all the rules,” Lauda told F1.com. “What they did was wrong and they got immediate punishment but they will also be caned by the World Council, that's for sure.”

“There are two ways to race in Formula 1 as a team. If the approach is political then Ferrari's ways are used. Or we try to give the two drivers the same opportunities and the fans an exciting sport, as Red Bull is doing" added Lauda.

Ferrari's response was not long in coming: "Many voices of young and old maître à penser were raised in the festival of hypocrisy staged after Hockenheim: some were promptly brought back into line by the voice of the master, others continued to dispense sentences free of charge" declared the Maranello house.

“The latest comes from Austria, from a character who, having hung up his helmet, has never skimped on words and judgments left and right, only to then have to become the protagonist, on more than one occasion, of acrobatic turns to reposition himself in the direction where the wind blows strongest. Good old Niki missed a good opportunity to keep quiet this time, especially in light of the fact that it was he himself, when he was a driver for the Scuderia, who appreciated the advantages: it is clear that the supposed Ferrari model of driver management was convenient for him then ...And then where was his moralistic fury when, in recent years, so many were carrying out more or less obvious exercises in hypocrisy? As for the forecasts on the decisions that the FIA ​​World Council will take on September 8th, they are obviously left to their own devices: in these cases the best thing to do is to have trust and respect towards the highest federal body" concluded Ferrari.