ROD Nelson is the chief operations engineer for Williams in Formula One.

He used to work with Renault, and he was Fernando Alonso's race engineer when the latter last won the drivers' title in 2006.

At Williams, Nelson looks after trackside operations, and is very much in the thick of the action.

And when it comes to racing incidents in F1, it seems no one shies away from giving their opinions, including him.

One trackside incident still being debated in the F1 world, is the controversial Felipe Massa overtaking move at last Sunday's Australian Grand Prix, which saw him punt David Coulthard out of the race instantly on Lap 26.

When The New Paper met Nelson in Singapore last week on his way to today's Malaysia Grand Prix at Sepang, he said Massa has to shoulder most of the blame.

At the end of the start-finish straight, braking down from 305kph to 145kph (see sequence of pictures on the right), Massa suddenly darted inside Coulthard to take Turn One.

Coulthard turned in as usual, but because Massa's car was almost halfway alongside, his Red Bull was launched into the air, and out of the race.

OVERTAKING'S UNWRITTEN WISDOM

Nelson said: "It's an unspoken rule, but generally speaking, when it comes to overtaking, the widely accepted wisdom among the drivers over the years, is that you should be alongside to force the person you're overtaking to back off.

"Of course, as it is always in F1, drivers often like to differ in their opinions of what is 'alongside', when it appears they are the ones at fault," he added, which is in line with Massa's complete denial of guilt since.

Nelson added: "Massa was too optimistic here."

He said Massa had to accept 60 per cent of the blame.

So why does Coulthard have to shoulder the remaining 40 per cent of the blame?

Nelson replied: "To help reduce drag for some of the cars, they've been designed with their mirrors moved out further to the sides.

"So instead of a simple glance left and right, you may have turn your head a bit more to get a proper look at who's behind you.

"This tiny little bit of extra time to turn your head right or left may have meant the difference in Coulthard's reaction time, in deciding what to do with Massa's challenge."

Coulthard has said as much, referring to how his Red Bull car has its mirrors mounted on the side pods of the car, instead of nearer to his head on the car's cockpit.

He said: "The FIA (motor racing's world ruling body) should realise that you can see almost nothing out of these sidepod mirrors."

This article was first published in The New Paper on Mar 23, 2008.