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Ferrari Was Victim of Red Bull Team Games - Costa

Almost two weeks after the curtain has dropped over the 2010 season of Formula One, Ferrari's technical director Aldo Costa comes to throw in his own theory of what happened in the season finale Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

In what many will recall as being the race in which Fernando Alonso lost the world title rather than Sebastian Vettel won it, Costa believes the Italian squad was the victim of “team games.” To be more precise, Ferrari's much-blamed strategy to bring Alonso earlier to the pits for his tire change was influenced by the “cooperation” between the two Red Bull sponsored teams Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso.

We were crucified by team games; what we saw in Abu Dhabi was team games,” Costa revealed in an interview with La Repubblica newspaper in Italy.

Obviously, he was referring to the fact that Red Bull's Mark Webber spent too little time behind Scuderia Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari following his first pit stop, passing the Spaniard quite easily on a racetrack where overtaking is a rarity.

The fact that Webber was no longer held up behind Alguersuari forced Ferrari to call in Alonso earlier than predicted, as the Australian was making up plenty of seconds per lap as compared to the Ferrari-an. The Scuderia moved quick enough to send their driver back on the track ahead of Webber, but what they didn't estimate was the time lost in traffic afterwards.

Anyway, we made some impulsive assessments and got it wrong,” added Costa, admitting that Ferrari's part of the blame is not at all negligible.
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