Fernando Alonso claimed the second victory of his debut season with Ferrari at Hockenheim, but only after the Scuderia told long-time leader Felipe Massa to make way for the Spaniard.

Massa had taken advantage of front row pair Sebastian Vettel and Alonso appeared preoccupied with fighting each other off the line, sweeping around the outside of turn one to claim the lead. Alonso duly slotted into second as Vettel again found that trying to pin an opponent against the pit-wall was not a wise tactic, and the German nearly lost out to a fast-starting Jenson Button, until baulking the Briton as he attempted to defend third. Button, slowed, dropped back to sixth as Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber both got back inside him.

From there, the two Ferraris proceeded to drop Vettel as they traded early fastest laps, and held station through the round of pit-stops, where Button was the biggest winner, by vaulting past Webber into fifth behind his team-mate.

The order appeared static until the fateful call of ‘Felipe, Fernando is faster than you’ came on lap 48, and the Brazilian duly made room for his team-mate exiting at the hairpin. The atmosphere on the Ferrari pit stand was clear to see, with Massa’s engineer Rob Smedley decidedly apologetic at having to impart the ‘news’.

Once ahead, Alonso did pull away from his team-mate, who recovered from the blow of losing a potential victory on the anniversary of his Hungaroring accident to keep Vettel at bay over the remaining 17 laps, while Hamilton and Button gave vain chase at a distance in excess of 20 seconds, having briefly been told to save fuel. Webber’s hopes of recovering the places he lost to the McLaren’s were dented by reports of excessive oil consumption with a third of the race to go, his sixth place points allowing Vettel to draw level in the championship, albeit still behind the McLaren duo.

Robert Kubica, Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher and Vitaly Petrov rounded out the point-scorers, despite the Russian being told to ensure that managed his gearshifts ‘properly’.

A dominant Fernando Alonso won on his Ferrari debut in Bahrain on Sunday, leading home team mate Felipe Massa by 16 seconds to earn 25 world championship points.

Lewis Hamilton was third for McLaren, with early leader Sebastian Vettel fourth after exhaust problems on his Red Bull. The returning Michael Schumacher was sixth.

Fernando Alonso has insisted that he won’t be upset this year if he fails to win the F1 drivers’ title for a third time.

Alonso will make his debut for Ferrari at the Bahrain Grand Prix next weekend and while the Scuderia have been on the pace in pre-season testing – and are considered by some to be one of the favourites, the Spaniard has tried to quell expectations ahead of the season opener.

“I understand that people can be disappointed if I’m not champion [this year] but I personally won’t be,” he told Spanish radio Cadena Ser. “It’s a sport, (Real) Madrid and Barcelona are the best (football) clubs in the world but they can lose the Champions League or a match.

“Not winning the championship is completely logical – and it would not be a disappointment.”

Alonso, who failed to win a single race last year with Renault, is though still very upbeat about his prospects with the new Ferrari F10. Indeed speaking to Ferrari’s official website he was a lot more ‘on message’.

“I want to thank you all for what you have done for this new F1 Ferrari. I already told it to the newspapers but I want to tell you personally: this is the best car I’ve ever driven,” he said this week in an address to the mechanics and engineers responsible for building the Ferrari F10.

“This doesn’t mean that it will be enough to win every single race, but I’m happy about how the tests went and I think that we’re at 100 per cent for the first race in Bahrain. We are Ferrari and we know from our history that we have only one goal: winning the Championship. And I know that thanks to your work we can do it.

“We know that the first race is like the first stage at the Tour de France: what counts is winning. Felipe [Massa] and I are extremely motivated and we’ll give it our all to show that we merit the opportunity to drive a car like Ferrari.”

Double F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso has confessed that what he is really relishing in 2010 is the opportunity to renew his rivalry with old sparring partner and title duellist Michael Schumacher