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Auto Racing Capsules: McMurray wins Brickyard after Montoya falters
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Jamie McMurray's a big believer in fate, that things work out in the end if you just keep at it.
It's an ethos that's buoyed the NASCAR driver throughout his often bumpy career, one that's been a mixed bag at best, disappointing at worst.
McMurray remained upbeat last summer when he knew he was on his way out at Roush-Fenway Racing, optimistic he'd eventually find a new home. Opportunity came in a surprising place: driving for Chip Ganassi, the owner he'd left five years earlier for the deeper pockets at RFR.
It was a detour McMurray felt he needed to take. He came back to Ganassi — who had merged operations with Dale Earnhardt Inc. in the interim — a more mature, more appreciative driver.
He also came back to a better team, one that's found a way to thrive on NASCAR's biggest stages.
McMurray held off Kevin Harvick to win Sunday's Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and become only the third driver to triumph at both Indy and the Daytona 500 in the same season.
Heady territory for a driver — and a team — hardly considered among the sport's elite eight months ago.
"Everybody that has stuck behind me, when things weren't as great as they could have been. It's unreal right now. Winning the 500 ... both of them, it's just awesome."
McMurray joins Dale Jarrett (1996) and Jimmie Johnson (2006) as the only drivers to pull off the Daytona-Indy double while Ganassi has another bauble to add to his growing collection. Ganassi is the only owner to win the Daytona 500, Indy 500 and Brickyard in the same season.
For most of the race it appeared Ganassi was a lock for Victory Lane not with McMurray but Juan Pablo Montoya. The Colombian dominated at the 2.5-mile oval for the second straight year, leading a race-high 86 laps before an ill-fated gamble to take four tires instead of two during a late caution left the 2000 Indy 500 champion snakebit yet again.
The move dropped Montoya from first to seventh. His No. 42 car struggled on the restart and five laps later he found himself smacking the wall in Turn 4 before getting drilled by Dale Earnhardt Jr. He finished 32nd.
Crew chief Brian Pattie took responsibility for the miscue, and Ganassi didn't exactly disagree.
"What do I say to Juan and Brian? They should have taken two," Ganassi said.
It's a gamble that paid off handsomely for McMurray, who had little trouble shaking free of Kevin Harvick on the restart following Montoya's crash and picked up his fifth career victory.
Though McMurray remains on the outside of NASCAR's Chase picture, he's not exactly worried about it. A year ago he was a lame-duck driver on an underachieving team. Those days seem long ago.
"The guy that (has) got to feel like an idiot tonight has to be Jack Roush," said co-owner Felix Sabates. "He's the one that let (McMurray) go."
McMurray puts it a little more demurely. He won at Daytona by holding off a hard-charging Earnhardt in a race that is sometimes akin to winning the lottery.
He was better at Indy, running consistently in the top 5 all day at one of the most difficult tracks on the circuit. But he admitted winning wasn't in his mind while spending most of the day trying to keep the rear bumper of Montoya's Chevrolet in sight.
"I really believed that this was Juan's weekend," he said.
Until all of a sudden, it wasn't.
While a member of Montoya's crew carried his helmet and drenched firesuit out of Montoya's motorhome, McMurray was putting Ganassi in Victory Lane at the Brickyard for the second time in eight weeks.
In May, Ganassi sipped the milk after Target Chip Ganassi star Dario Franchitti won the Indy 500. This time he was kissing the bricks.
The taste was just as sweet — maybe even sweeter considering how far Ganassi's NASCAR program has come in the last few years.
"Is it surreal? Yes," Ganassi said. "From where we were a while back, people had written Jamie off. People had written us off."
Not anymore.
Harvick finished second for Richard Childress Racing, Greg Biffle was third in a Ford, followed by RCR teammate Clint Bowyer and two-time Brickyard winner Tony Stewart.
Jeff Burton, the third RCR entry, was sixth. Carl Edwards in a Ford was seventh and was followed by Kyle Busch in the highest-finishing Toyota, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano and Kurt Busch, who in 10th was the highest-finishing Dodge.
Johnson's attempt to win at the Brickyard for the fourth time in five years ended with a thud. He struggled all day at a track he has mastered so easily in the past and finished 22nd.
"We had real high expectations for the day," Johnson said. "We made some attempts during caution flags and made some big changes on pit road but nothing really woke up the car."
The winner at Indy has gone on to win the season championship in eight of the last 12 years. Don't expect McMurray to make it 9 of 13. Even with the victory he's just 16th in points heading into next week's race at Pocono, and with just six races remaining before the 12-driver Chase cutoff, there is plenty of work to be done.
To be honest, McMurray isn't really worried about it. Considering where he was 12 months ago, having the trophies from the two biggest races in the sport on his mantle will do for now.
"Getting to win the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 means more to me this year than making the Chase," he said. "This year or in 10 years, the guy that won (those races), everybody will talk about. The guy that finished third in points, nobody cares."
Ganassi completes Daytona-Indy-Brickyard sweep
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — With Jamie McMurray's victory in the Brickyard 400 on Sunday, owner Chip Ganassi claimed the first team triple crown in American auto racing: winning the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400 in the same year.
Success in Indy-style racing is nothing new for Ganassi. But now his NASCAR team has emerged from its past struggles on and off the track to become a force in stock cars. And they seem to be at their best in big events.
"Chip is the most dedicated person in racing I ever met," said Felix Sabates, Ganassi's longtime business partner in NASCAR.
McMurray won the season-opening Daytona 500 in February, and Ganassi IndyCar series driver Dario Franchitti won the Indy 500 in May.
McMurray then won again at the Brickyard, making him a surprise winner of NASCAR's two biggest races and handing Ganassi an achievement second-place finisher Kevin Harvick said probably will never happen again.
"To win all those in one year is remarkable," Harvick said.
Ganassi's Sunday got a little sweeter when Scott Dixon won the IRL race in Canada.
McMurray also noted that Ganassi's sports car racing team nearly won the 24 Hours of Daytona earlier this year.
"It's just so hard to get both organizations good at the same time," McMurray said. "And this race, the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500 are races of strategy. You see guys dominate those races and not win. So it's remarkable what he's been able to put together, the people he's been able to hire. I feel very honored to get to be a part of that accomplishment."
Ganassi is known to some in the garage for his tough-guy persona, but he was humbled by Sunday's victory.
"You have to plan your work and work your plan and have some passion about what you're doing," Ganassi said. "You have to love what you're doing. I love what I'm doing."
Ganassi competed in Indy-style cars as a driver, then went on to rival Roger Penske as one of the sport's top team owners. But he had a hard time duplicating that success when he crossed over to NASCAR.
The top finishes weren't coming frequently enough and he had trouble finding enough sponsorship money, eventually leading him to merge his team with Dale Earnhardt Inc.
"We had to pull our wings in a bit and make some changes, take it a little bit on the chin, which we did," Ganassi said. "But we always knew we'd be racing. I think a lot of people in the media had us written off that we were bye-bye. Everybody was ready to kiss us off. We knew that wasn't the case."
And he reunited with McMurray, a driver who had left his team years ago to drive for car owner Jack Roush.
"I think it's been really good for both Chip and I to experience all of this together because we worked together when things weren't great," McMurray said. "And we kind of built this together along with the 1 team, to where it is."
For a while on Sunday, it looked like another Ganassi driver was going to give the owner his trifecta. But for the second year in a row, a victory at the Brickyard slipped away from Juan Pablo Montoya.
Montoya appeared to have the race in hand going into a round of late pit stops, but his crew decided to change four tires while rival drivers changed two and he lost track position for the restart.
Montoya couldn't get through traffic, then had a run-in with Dale Earnhardt Jr. that left his car too damaged to continue. Montoya drove to the garage and went straight to his motorhome without commenting to reporters.
"My heart goes out to Juan," Ganassi said. "He had a great day, too."
Ganassi said having two drivers up front allowed the team to split its pit strategy; knowing that Montoya's team was going to change four tires, McMurray's team could gamble and take only two.
"Without the 42 car, the 1 car wouldn't have won, I don't think," Ganassi said.
-- Chris Jenkins
Johnson fails in quest to make history at Indy
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Jimmie Johnson tried to stick to his normal Indianapolis routine Sunday. His No. 48 car ruined everything.
A handling problem befuddled Johnson's team all day, forcing the two-time defending Brickyard 400 champion to abdicate his title and abandon the history-making quest before the checkered flag ended Sunday's race.
"We didn't expect it to be this way," Johnson said. "We were really good in qualifying. But right now, there's really just confusion here."
It was a rare miss for NASCAR's version of Mr. Consistency, who qualified second and suggested afterward that he could have taken the pole as he attempted to become the sixth four-time winner in track history and the first American to ever win three straight races at the speedway.
The man with a record four straight Cup titles, 11 top-10 finishes in the first 19 races this season and three wins in the previous four Cup races at Indy lost his touch — and his place in Victory Lane, too.
Johnson blamed it on an understeer problem that nobody on Chad Knaus' crew could solve.
He managed to run in the top five for the first 40 laps, but when things went awry, Johnson fell back steadily. He lost six spots from lap 40 to lap 50, and fell all the way back to 22nd after a 15-second pit stop on lap 67 when Johnson instructed his crew to work on the shock absorbers.
That didn't work.
Before pitting on lap 118, Johnson was nearly 48 seconds behind the leaders, so he stayed long enough for the surprised crew to change the front shock absorbers, put tape on the front grill and pound down the front splitter. The extended stop left Johnson a lap behind the leaders and ended his reign as Indy's king.
"We made some attempts during caution flags to make some big changes on pit road, but nothing really hooked the car up," he said. "We'll just have to dig in and find out what happened."
Johnson should at least get some solace from his Hendrick Motorsports teammates this week.
Four-time Cup winner Jeff Gordon fought a vibration problem Sunday, lost part of a flat tire as he entered the pits on lap 129 and then broke part of his splitter. He wound up 23rd.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the only Hendrick driver moving up in the field after starting 17th. But when race leader Juan Pablo Montoya slid up the track, hit the wall and skidded back across the track, Earnhardt was sent into the wall at the entrance of pit lane with 14 laps to go. He finished 27th.
Veteran Mark Martin fared better, finishing 11th and moving up one spot to 13th in points. The problem: He passed his teammate, Earnhardt, in the standings and lost an additional 25 points to Clint Bowyer, who still holds the 12th and final spot in the Cup's championship round with six races left before The Chase begins.
"We never had a chance," Gordon said. "We were just salvaging what we could out of the day. To be honest with you, I didn't think 23rd was that bad for what we had."
Gordon said track position was the key to Sunday's results and warned not to read much into what happened Sunday as a barometer heading into next week's race at Pocono.
Still, the expectations were loftier for Johnson.
And like Gordon, Johnson never had a realistic chance to win Sunday.
"You want to win every race you're in, especially the big ones," Johnson said. "We're disappointed with today, but this track has been good for me with three wins in the last four years. We'll move on."
-- Michael Marot
Early chaos hits Brickyard 400
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — It started with a crash right after the green flag fell. Then things really got chaotic at Sunday's Brickyard 400.
Kyle Busch's car was damaged when he spun on the first lap of the race, collecting a group of seven cars.
The melee tore up some of the infield grass, creating debris that apparently got caught in the grills of several other cars and caused them to overheat. Contenders such as Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski made green-flag pit stops.
Ryan Newman had a flat tire, and Max Papis' car briefly caught on fire after an apparent incident with Robby Gordon.
And it all happened before lap 20.
Juan Pablo Montoya stayed in front of the chaos for most of the day and appeared to have a victory in hand. But a late strategy decision put him back in the pack, then he lost control in the closing laps and collided with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jamie McMurray won the race.
It was a tough way to start for Busch, who was driving his first Sprint Cup race with a new spotter. But he rebounded to finish eighth.
"We fought all day," Busch said. "We saved the day. It was just a mistake made early there that almost had us in big, big trouble. Fortunately, we came back. We've had a really tough time over the past four or five races, so it was good to bounce back."
Busch won Saturday night's Nationwide series race at nearby O'Reilly Raceway Park, but he didn't qualify very well at the big track earlier Saturday and started 23rd.
Busch sustained damage and had to pit for repairs, but was able to return to the track. He made an impressive climb back up to 12th place by lap 40.
And it was another rough day in a stock car for Sam Hornish Jr., the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner. He was able to return to the race after the early spin but was two laps down to the leaders.
"I tried to keep it from spinning out, but just needed 12 inches to keep it off the wall," Hornish said. "It (stinks). We work so hard and looked forward to racing here. We don't make it half a lap before trouble finds us."
Hornish has had disappointing results since trying to make the transition to NASCAR and said Friday that his future in NASCAR is uncertain. Because sponsor ExxonMobil is leaving his car at the end of this season, there's nothing in place for him to drive next year.
-- Chris Jenkins
Notebook: Kyle Busch 8th at Brickyard despite crash
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Kyle Busch's day at the Brickyard 400 finished much better than it began.
Busch caused a seven-car accident in the first lap when he clipped Sam Hornish, Jr.'s car.
"I just lost it, I guess," Busch said.
The accident wasn't as serious for Busch as it appeared, and he returned to the track in relatively good shape. He was in 24th place at lap 10, then climbed to sixth at laps 120 and 130 before finishing eighth on Sunday.
"The car drove well," he said. "Initial restarts and stuff, it was real edgy. Once we got in a single-file line, it was pretty good."
Things weren't so good for the other drivers involved in the crash. Hornish, Elliott Sadler, Reed Sorenson, Todd Bodine, Bobby Labonte and David Reutimann were affected, and none finished higher than 28th.
"A tough start pretty much cemented our fate today," said Hornish, who finished 30th. "I was just trying to let things sort out at the start of the race when the 18 (Busch) got loose."
Sadler officially completed one lap before returning during lap 106 and finishing 38th. Bodine completed 59 laps before leaving the race and finishing 37th.
CHILDRESS RACING: Richard Childress' drivers did everything but win on Sunday.
Three of the owner's drivers finished in the top six on Sunday at the Brickyard 400. Points leader Kevin Harvick finished second, Clint Bowyer was fourth and Jeff Burton sixth.
Harvick stretched his advantage over Jeff Gordon to 184 points. He was fine with padding his lead.
"I felt like we had a top-five car, but we didn't have a winning car," Harvick said. "We had a chance to win at the end and came up just a little short."
Bowyer solidified his 12th-place standing in the Chase for the Championship.
"It was awesome, a lot of fun, and what was needed," he said. "It was a good run, and a good points race for us. It wasn't what we wanted, but it was what we needed."
Burton wasn't as happy.
"Didn't have the grip I thought we would," he said. "Just not as good as we thought, but we did OK. Not great, but OK. We had a solid day, we need to do better. But if that is going to be a bad day, that's good."
LOGANO MAKES CHARGE: Joey Logano was forced to move to the back of the field at the start because of an engine change, but he recovered to finish ninth.
He was also affected by the crash in the first lap.
"That first wreck, I didn't get in it, but I ran over a brake rotor," he said. "It popped up over there and hit the front end. Had a bunch of scratches on the grill."
Logano ran between 10th and 20th for most of the race. He said he was fine with where he finished.
"Finally got the car the best it was at the end," he said. "Maybe one more little adjustment might have helped. We about finished where we ran."
ATTENDANCE: Empty seats were plentiful again at the Brickyard.
NASCAR crowd estimates had dropped from 270,000 in 2007 to 240,000 in 2008 and 180,000 last year. This year, the estimate fell to 140,000.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway spokesman Eric Powell said the economy played a role, but there was more to it.
"This is a business, and our business is to provide great entertainment for our fans and to sell tickets," he said. "While I wouldn't say we're concerned, I'd say we have a lot of work to do to continue to raise the profile of this event, and find not only creative ways to not only make this a great race, but to make this an affordable race for our fans."
FORMER INDY 500 WINNERS: Montoya was one of three former Indy 500 winners trying to become the first driver to win the Indy 500 and the Brickyard. He led the most laps with 86, but crashed in lap 146 and finished 32nd.
Jacques Villeneuve, the 1995 Indy 500 winner, finished 29th. Hornish, the 2006 Indy 500 winner, finished 30th.
MISCELLANEOUS: Jeff Gordon, chasing his fifth brickyard win, finished 23rd. ... Johnson, who sought his third straight Brickyard win, finished 22nd. ... Bodine started in the back of the field because of an engine change and finished 37th. ... Indianapolis Colts TE Dallas Clark waved the green flag.
-- Cliff Brunt
Changes likely as NASCAR works on 2011 schedule
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — NASCAR appears ready to give its 2011 Sprint Cup schedule a facelift.
CEO Brian France said before Sunday's race at Indianapolis that stock car's top series is in the "final throes" of completing next year's Cup slate and that it will have a considerably different look.
"There will be some changes as they look now," France said. "That could not quite materialize, but I sense it will and we'll have some pretty impactful changes to the schedule that I think will be good for NASCAR fans."
International Speedway Corp. and Speedway Motorsports Inc., the top two track operators in the series, have both petitioned NASCAR to alter the 36-race Cup schedule to accommodate date or track changes.
ISC is hoping Kansas will receive a second Cup date, while SMI could juggle its lineup to bring a second race to the popular Las Vegas venue and give its 1.5-mile track in northern Kentucky the Cup race its former ownership group has long coveted.
SMI president Bruton Smith wouldn't reveal specifics of SMI's requested schedule changes, but said NASCAR should feel "morally obligated" to bring a second Cup race to Las Vegas.
Smith also said he'd like to have a Cup race at "all" of SMI's NASCAR-sanctioned tracks. The only one that lacks a Cup date right now is Kentucky, where the former ownership group filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and ISC five years ago after its request for a Cup race was consistently denied.
SMI bought the track in 2008 and the court case was finally dropped earlier this year. Smith believes the path is now open for Kentucky to get a Cup event and France appears to be open to the idea.
"It's no secret that Kentucky is talking about hosting a Sprint Cup event and that's not that far away," France said. "It's fine to talk about Kentucky. It's a worthy market to at least discuss."
It's unlikely NASCAR would simply award Kentucky a race, meaning SMI will have to move a race from one of its other tracks to Kentucky. It's possible the summer race at New Hampshire or the spring race at Atlanta could be moved.
Smith, who says SMI's relationship with NASCAR is "better than it has ever been," said there would be little problem getting Kentucky ready for a Cup race. Smith believes it would take maybe three months to add 30,000 to 40,000 seats to bring capacity to over 100,000.
France said an announcement on the changes could come within the next two weeks.
The schedule isn't the only major adjustment the series could see in 2011. NASCAR is mulling a significant overhaul to its championship Chase, which has lacked much drama during Jimmie Johnson's four-year title run.
"If we have the perfect Chase that we would love to see, it would be just like every commissioner would tell you," he said. "They'd like to see great playoff events ... action-packed, close games, great story lines. That's what anybody's after. We're no different."
France would like to put a greater emphasis on winning races. Options include possibly trimming the size of the Chase field as cars fall from contention. France suggested a race perhaps midway through the Chase that eliminated some Chase qualifiers could replicate some of the excitement felt during the fall race at Richmond when the 12-car Chase field is set.
France cautioned that any overhaul wouldn't necessarily change the final result, adding that Johnson would have won each of the last four titles under all of the possible scenarios under consideration.
Reaction from the drivers has been lukewarm, but with TV ratings stalled and attendance sagging, France believes the series must adapt.
"It's what you do when you're sort of going through things and there's a headwind," he said. "Things aren't as easy as they have been in the past."
-- Will Graves
Hendrick says he'll honor Mark Martin's contract
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Team owner Rick Hendrick won't force Mark Martin out of his seat next year to make room for Kasey Kahne at Hendrick Motorsports.
Kahne has signed to take over the No. 5 Chevrolet in 2012, and Martin is slated to drive the car through the end of next season. He's remained adamant that he won't get out of the car a year early, and Hendrick said before Sunday's race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that he's planning on Martin driving the No. 5 next season.
"We have a deal with Mark, and we're going to honor that," Hendrick said. "We want to honor that. Kasey's known that. That's kind of where we are."
But Hendrick must find a place to stash Kahne next season, and by not announcing a plan yet, the speculation has persisted that Martin won't be back at Hendrick Motorsports next season.
The intensity picked up this weekend when Ray Evernham, the former championship-winning crew chief for Hendrick and current ESPN analyst, suggested Martin will ultimately step aside for Kahne. Some in the garage suggested that Evernham was doing Hendrick's "dirty work" by publicly suggesting Martin should bow out.
"I don't need anybody to do dirty work for me," Hendrick said. "If I have anything I want done, I'll go to the people. I won't have somebody else doing it or speaking for me. Mark has made a heck of contribution to our organization's path and still is. I wish Mark could drive four, five more years."
-- Jenna Fryer
IndyCar
Dixon wins Honda Edmonton Indy
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — New Zealand driver Scott Dixon won a bizarre Honda Edmonton Indy on Sunday after rival Helio Castroneves crossed the finish line first, but was penalized for blocking his own teammate, Will Power of Australia.
An enraged Castroneves, who was pushed down to 10th, stormed from his Dallara Honda car after the race to yell at IndyCar officials at the flag stand. He then grabbed the IndyCar security chief by the collar and shook him before others moved in to restrain him and lead him away.
In a statement released by Team Penske, Castroneves denied he moved his line.
"I actually did move him outside. When you go side by side like that with your teammate and they just take it away from you, it's just absurd."
Dixon said "rules are rules."
"Pretty strange to not run a lap and actually win the race," Dixon said. "It was obvious Will had a pretty good run. The only way to stop him was blocking."
It was the second win of the year for the 30-year-old racer with the Target Chip Ganassi team. Dixon won in Edmonton in 2008 en route to six victories and the overall points championship.
Dixon raced around the 1.96-mile, 14-turn City Centre Airport track at 114.326 miles per hour at a best time of one minute 2.13 seconds.
Power ended up 2.67 seconds behind Dixon but retained the lead in the overall points race. Dixon's teammate Dario Franchitti was third, 3.28 seconds behind.
It had been Power's race to lose. The 29-year-old Australian driver was coming off two consecutive wins, had run the fastest in practice and in qualifying and had led the entire race until Castroneves nipped underneath him with 18 laps to go to take the lead.
With five laps to go, Simona De Silvestro went off course, bringing out a full-course yellow caution flag. The cars were forced to reduce speed and stay in formation.
With three laps to go, the green flag was waved and the cars roared into action. Power gunned his engine and drove hard to the outside on the wide corner at the end of pit row, catching up to Castroneves and appearing ready to overtake him.
That's when Castroneves moved off his normal racing line up to the outside to block his teammate, a violation of IndyCar rules. Power backed off.
"At the end of the day I was always going to do a clean move on Helio," Power said later. "I wasn't going to take a risk of taking us both out. I wouldn't do that to a teammate. I race my teammates clean."
As Castroneves moved high to block Power, Dixon, charging hard in third, suddenly found himself with a wide open lane on the inside of the track. He took it and passed Power for second.
With two laps to go, race officials cited Castroneves for a black flag infraction and gave him a drive-through penalty, which means a driver must go through pit row on his next lap at half speed, 60 miles per hour.
Castroneves ignored the order and raced to the checkered flag, leading to the post-race fireworks.
Dixon said the officials made the correct call.
"We get told in every drivers meeting that you can't protect your line. I guess you've got to give credit to Brian (Barnhart, the race competition boss) for standing up and doing something about it, because it's definitely going to make everybody understand and not do it again."
Formula One
Alonso wins German GP but Ferrari fined
HOCKENHEIM, Germany (AP) — Fernando Alonso won the German Grand Prix on Sunday for Ferrari, but the team was fined $100,000 afterward for orchestrating his pass of teammate Felipe Massa.
Race stewards didn't overturn Ferrari's 1-2 finish, choosing to send the case to the sport's governing body, which could impose more sanctions. Team orders that affect the result of a race are forbidden under Formula One rules.
"In the interests of the sport, we have decided not to go through a procedure of appealing against it, confident that the (FIA) world council will know how to evaluate the overall facts correctly," Ferrari team chief Stefano Domenicali said.
Alonso had more points in the title race and the team apparently felt it would be better served if he collected the 25 points that go to the winner rather than Massa.
"I don't think I have to say anything to that," Massa said when asked after the race about the instructions. "We work for the team."
There was no immediate comment from Ferrari.
Massa, racing on the first anniversary of a crash that nearly killed him, led the race for 49 of 67 laps before he was passed by Alonso following communications from Ferrari over the team radio. He looked unhappy after the race and the two drivers barely hugged as they climbed out of their red cars.
Stewards said Ferrari was in breach of Article 39.1 of the International Auto Federation (FIA) 2010 sporting regulations.
Article 39.1 says: "Team orders that interfere with race results are prohibited."
Sebastian Vettel of Germany was third in his Red Bull. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren was fourth.
After 11 of 19 races, Hamilton leads the overall standings with 157 points ahead of McLaren teammate Jenson Button with 143. Vettel has 136 points, tied for third with Red Bull teammate Mark Webber. Alonso is fifth with 123 points, 38 ahead of Massa.
"I can't say I am fighting for the championship," Massa said.
Alonso won his second race of the season and Ferrari finished 1-2 for the second time this year.
"In some parts of the race we were fighting very hard for first place, maybe it was a bit dangerous. It's a difficult race to overtake," said Alonso, a two-time Formula One champion who earned his 23rd career victory. "We are professional, we try to do the best for the team.
"I don't know what happened, but at the exit of turn six I saw Felipe a little bit slow. Sometimes you are quick, sometimes you are slow, and in some parts I was quicker than him, so it's very difficult to judge."
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Ferrari appeared to impose team orders.
"It was surprising what happened with the Ferraris, it looked to be a team order with the cars switching positions," Horner said. "If so, it's a shame for Formula One and the fans that they were deprived of a race between the two Ferrari drivers today."
The first of two decisive moments in the race took place at the start.
Pole sitter Vettel moved wide to try to block Alonso. Massa, starting from third, used the gap to pass from the outside going into the first corner, where also Alonso managed to slip past Vettel. The two Ferraris stayed in front for the entire race.
Then, on lap 49, Massa appeared to go slightly wide at a corner and Alonso easily shot past the Brazilian driver.
Alonso had been pushing Massa hard for several laps and was heard saying on the team radio, "This is ridiculous."
Alonso then overtook Massa, who had just been told by Ferrari over the radio: "Fernando is faster than you, did you understand that message?"
Having dropped into second, Massa was then told: "OK, good lad. Just stick with him now."
Massa confirmed the radio conversation, but later also said he had been struggling after switching to harder tires.
Massa said Ferrari did not have team orders.
"For sure you always want to win. We don't have team orders. If you can't do the race you want, you have to think about the team. I am professional, and today I showed how professional I am," Massa said.
"Everyone saw that I can win races, that I can be competitive. But I was struggling on hard tires."
In later comments distributed by Ferrari, Massa said it was his decision to let Alonso pass.
"We drivers have to first of all think of the interests of the team and that is what I showed again today. In my opinion this was not a case of team orders: my engineer kept me constantly informed on what was going on behind me, especially when I was struggling a bit on the hard tires.
"So I decided to do the best thing for the team, and a one-two finish is the best possible result."
Alonso covered the 67 laps — a distance of 190.5 miles — in 1 hour, 27 minutes, 38.864 seconds. He finished 4.1 seconds ahead of Massa and 5.1 seconds ahead of Vettel.
Asked about the passing maneuver of Ferrari, Vettel said: "We get the check not from you guys but from the team."
Alonso, in his first season with Ferrari, won the opening race of the season in Bahrain, where Massa took second.
But Ferrari has struggled in recent races and Alonso finished 14th in the British GP two weeks ago.
Massa required surgery for a fractured skull sustained one year ago when he was struck on the helmet by a heavy metal spring that had come off another car during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
He was placed in an induced coma and spent nine days in a Budapest hospital.
Massa returns to Hungary for next week's Grand Prix.
-- Nesha Starcevic
NHRA
Hight wins Funny Car in Colorado
MORRISON, Colo. (AP) — Robert Hight defeated father-in-law John Force to win the Funny Car classification of the Mile-High Nationals on Sunday.
Hight (4.215 seconds, 296.05 mph) beat Force (4.386, 284.95) in an all-John Force Racing team final for his fourth win of the season.
The other winners at the 16th race in the 23-race NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season were Doug Kalitta (Top Fuel), Allen Johnson (Pro Stock) and Andrew Hines (Pro Stock Motorcycle).
Hight knocked off defending champion Ron Capps in the quarterfinals and No. 1 qualifier Matt Hagan in the semis before beating Force, a five-time winner in Colorado.
Kalitta (3.963/308.35) beat Brandon Bernstein (4.003/297.35) for his first win of the season in Top Fuel. Bernstein stunned top qualifier and defending champion Antron Brown in the quarterfinals and points leader Larry Dixon in the semifinals.
Johnson (6.974/198.26) beat Jeg Coughlin (7.858/135.09) to win for his first victory this year and the eighth of his career Johnson led wire-to-wire with his Dodge Avenger and repeated as Pro Stock champion in Colorado.
Hines (7.342/178.02) won his third race of the year in Pro Stock Motorcycle, beating Karen Stoffer (7.402/175.94). Hines' only other win in Colorado came in 2006.
