"Ferrari clowns have handed Lewis the title - Ecclestone pours scorn on Singapore fiasco

Bernie Ecclestone put on his best straight face last week and in one simple sentence condemned Formula One giants Ferrari to another bout of public ridicule. 'If the Ferrari president is right about the Singapore Grand Prix being a circus,' Ecclestone told The Mail on Sunday, 'then we have to be grateful to him for providing the clowns.'

Ferrari would find it hard to dispute Ecclestone's view. For if allowing their world championship challenger Felipe Massa to drive away from the pits in Singapore last Sunday with several metres of fuel pipe still attached to his car was not humiliating enough, the team's president, Luca di Montezemolo, then followed up by attempting to belittle an event that was the dreamchild of Formula One's paymaster himself.

Di Montezemolo expressed his frustration at the bungling that may just have handed Britain's Lewis Hamilton the world championship by condemning F1's first night-time grand prix as a 'circus'. But in doing so, he must have known that Ecclestone's revenge would be swift and sweet. Last week, Ecclestone duly obliged.

Most worrying for Ferrari, however, is the fact that Ecclestone's view of the Italian team's inept performance in Singapore is one that is shared across the F1 spectrum. For Hamilton's march towards the world title has left Ferrari buckling under the pressure. Nerves are getting frayed at every level, from the pit-lane to the boardroom. Massa, Hamilton's principal rival for the title, could manage only 13th place to the British driver's third in Singapore and he will board a plane for the Japanese Grand Prix still smarting from the fiasco that allowed Hamilton to open a seven-point lead in the championship race.

Drivers’ standings
1 L HAMILTON (GB) McLaren ........84pts
2 F MASSA (Bra) Ferrari......................77
3 R KUBICA (Pol) BMW Sauber ........64
4 K RAIKKONEN (Fin) Ferrari ............57
5 N HEIDFELD (Ger) BMW Sauber......56
6 H KOVALAINEN (Fin) McLaren ......51

Japanese Grand Prix Sunday, October 12, 5.30am
Massa's team-mate and reigning champion Raikkonen, who has negotiated a new two year, $80million deal, will head for Mount Fuji dealing with renewed criticism after he drove, inexplicably, into a barrier in Singapore, which means he has not scored a point from his last four races.

Rather than address the shortcomings his team displayed in Singapore, Di Montezemolo chose to make a public condemnation of an event that had received plaudits from around the world. 'When we race on tracks which should be used for a circus, anything can happen,' he said. 'This is humiliating for Formula One.'
Ecclestone's retort was blunt and savagely to the point. 'After the weekend Ferrari had, their president should have shut up and kept his head down,' he said. 'If Massa loses the world championship, he will know the team were responsible. He would have destroyed everybody in Singapore if he had kept going.'

Ecclestone had imaginatively sold the floodlit grand prix to the Singapore government for £60m, permitting F1's vast European audience to watch the race on lunchtime TV. Ferrari's pit-lane embarrassment was laid bare before an audience of millions, but to Ecclestone's mind the Italians had only themselves to blame for over-complicating their refuelling procedure.

'If I wanted to be a smart-arse, I'd have devised a system so that the light goes green to release the driver at the same time as the coupling hose comes off the car,' he said. 'If it's a matter of turning a switch, which I am led to believe is how it works, then why not stick with the "lollipop" man of old? Why do you want to have some other piece of technology that can go wrong? It's over the top.

The mistakes in Singapore have swung the championship in Hamilton's favour. Seven points is a healthy lead with three races left - and Ferrari will be feeling the pressure now. Lewis has shown us for the last two years how strong he is.'

Massa can win in Japan, China and Brazil and still be denied the world championship by Hamilton if the 23-year-old British driver is second in those three final races. While Ferrari retreated into panicmode in Singapore, Hamilton accepted third place in a calculated, intelligent manner that promises to be rewarded with the grandest prize in motorsport.

'I hate driving for points, but I think we can all see the benefit of that approach at the moment,' said Hamilton, who flies to Japan tomorrow. On Wednesday, he will share a promotional stage with Massa in Tokyo, when McLaren, Ferrari, Bridgestone and the FIA, the sport's governing body, jointly launch an eco-friendly campaign under the slogan 'Make Cars Green'.

Massa may be a shade green himself at the stranglehold Hamilton now has on the title race. 'Our ambition for the last three races is to have a Ferrari one-two finish at all of them,' said Massa. 'It will be tough, but everybody will be doing their best. The most important element to consider is that we have a very good car.'

That is an undeniable truth. Neither Hamilton nor McLaren-Mercedes will feel they have Ferrari beaten; but they will know they have them on the back foot at a critical moment in the championship. Raikkonen, who won the world title with a storming late surge to deny Hamilton the crown in the final race of last season, cuts a disconsolate figure at present.

'Obviously, I'm sad about this situation,' he said. 'I can't explain this dark period and there's nothing I can do to change what has happened. We have to look to the last three races to turn things around.' Those who have signed off his new, extravagant contract will demand nothing less.

But the championship is under the control of Hamilton, and all because the race Di Montezemolo dismissed as a 'circus' was headlined by men in the Ferrari pit who lacked only large red noses and brightly coloured wigs."

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Furious: Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone

Wheels are coming off: Ferrari's Felipe Massa makes a pit stop during the Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Street Circuit on 28 September

Forgot something? The Ferrari pit crew fail to get the fuel hose clear

Fueling their problems: Ferrari's mistake costs them the race

Thanks for that boys: Lewis Hamilton wins third place after Ferrari's foul-up