24 replies to this topic

[drunkenmaster]

I'm a bit confused: Reading through comments it seems team orders have risen a lot in acceptance recently, at least when one particular driver is concerned. So with this polling I'd like to get a clearer picture about the general mood on team orders in the year 2013.

P.S. I'd have liked to split this in six questions, but I'm only allowed to post three poll questions. So I had to respectively combine two questions into one, just in case you're wondering why the poll choices are so long...;)

[SealTheDiffuser]

hatred versus VET makes team orders accpetable!!!

bloody bright new world order.

[docronzo]

Teamorders are like cancer for the sport. Artificial, phony, drivers apologing for overtaking maneuvers... It's an illness, a prestage of betting fraud. TV stations will have to change their intros showing no more racing cars but pit wall boffins calculating and sending messages to their drivers... Here's the point where I'm definitely losing my interest in Formula 1 after more than 20 years...

[docronzo]

And it's surely not a Vettel thing here...

[mikeC]

...bloody bright new world order.

Team orders have been an integral part of the sport for over a hundred years - it's surely time we got used to them

[Lontano]

At the end of the day, there's no such thing as a driver without a team. So should a driver do what the team wants him to? Yes, or get out of the car.

What we have seen this weekend are not championship deciding team orders alla Salo - Irvine / Barrichello - Schumacher / Alonso - Massa, but team orders issued to protect the team for that one race. As a team manager, if you want your drivers to stop pushing the only fair way to do it is to make them hold position.

Do I like team orders? No, but I understand why they exist, and so should the drivers.

[docronzo]

Remember Senna famous words: Obeying Teamorders is in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life. I've been doing it all my life. It stands up before anything else.

[drunkenmaster]

What we have seen this weekend are not championship deciding team orders

Umm, how do you know that???

The points Vettel would have missed if he had heeded the team order, or the points that Rosberg in fact has missed, could be just the points missing at the end of the season to win the championship...

[Wander]

Most team orders are wrong, and a driver should heed them anyway.

This is my opinion.

[racerbaz]

Teamorders are like cancer for the sport. Artificial, phony, drivers apologing for overtaking maneuvers... It's an illness, a prestage of betting fraud. TV stations will have to change their intros showing no more racing cars but pit wall boffins calculating and sending messages to their drivers... Here's the point where I'm definitely losing my interest in Formula 1 after more than 20 years...

I agree - Much as I am a Webber fan Vettel was right to ignore team orders - it's all made worse by team radios which should be banned so that drivers make their own mistakes and this in itself would make F1 more intersting. I greatly respect Webber, Massa & Coulthard who all obeyed team orders - but I would have respected them a great deal more if they had ignored the team manager and raced like Vettel did. Hamilton and Alonso irnored orders as it Lauda,Senna, Prost and Mansell. Because they were/are pure racers and are not afraid of losing their jobs or in awe of finding another drive. .
I have seen all the ins and outs of the team orders argument since 1957 and it's only getting worse - you only have to have seen Phille Massa and Rob Smedley's interviews defending Ferrari's "Fernando is faster than you" episode to see how cringingly bad it can get. Both men saying what they patently didn't believe.
Yes team orders are a cancer destroying racing in the sport. Perhaps One-Man teams without the necessity to produce your own cars would help a sport 'too busy looking up it's own a... to see if it's hat is on straight.

[The Kanisteri]

There should be option in first set: "Team orders are justified to secure both cars to finishline at end of race if no threat from ahead and behind."

Rules are like drivers have to maintain their cars through several races. There was saying in past that perfect race car wins the race and breaks off after finishline. I doen't apply anymore in F1.

[Garagiste]

I don't feel that team orders are always "right" as in that they sometimes leave a nasty taste, such as if it's an order to swap positions early in the season.
However, I respect that I don't own a team and those that do should run it exactly how they see fit, so given the options had to vote that they are always right.
Doesn't mean that I always have to like them, but that's a different question.

[Clatter]

There should be option in first set: "Team orders are justified to secure both cars to finishline at end of race if no threat from ahead and behind."

Rules are like drivers have to maintain their cars through several races. There was saying in past that perfect race car wins the race and breaks off after finishline. I doen't apply anymore in F1.

Why is that justified?

The drivers have resources available to them to use during the race IE Fuel and Tyres. One driver could blast away and use these up early and struggle towards the end, the other driver can take it easier so that he has more available to him at the end, and they should be allowed to use that potential advantage. The race ends when the chequered flag drops, not when the last round of pitstops occur.

[racerbaz]

I don't feel that team orders are always "right" as in that they sometimes leave a nasty taste, such as if it's an order to swap positions early in the season.
However, I respect that I don't own a team and those that do should run it exactly how they see fit, so given the options had to vote that they are always right.
Doesn't mean that I always have to like them, but that's a different question.

It is of course the team owners right to ensure the team is run to his or her will and that employees do their bidding as they are paying their considerable salaries.
The present vast expense of designing and manufacturing one F1 car for one driver is probably not on. So teams will it seems always have two drivers to cater for.
So we will always have this team orders problem unless something changes.
I believe the cost of design and manufacture of the car being so vast is one of the problems. We have had long periods in the past when people could buy their car and run it against the manufacturers. I don't see what is wrong with this - particularly when people are trying to reduce costs. I believe fans want to see driver competition not NASA versus NASA technology but this is what we now have - banks of technicians playing intellectual computer and simulation games against each other - very clever and not that fascinating either. The drivers now seem very small cogs in large corporate companies instead of the gladiator heroes we used to worship - they are now just like you and me - just worker ants and mostly powerless and obedient to the boss - part of a corporate plan rather than a warrior.

[Atreiu]

Team orders are perfectly acceptable. Sometimes there is just a lot at risk for teammates to be let loose and have their ways. Some other times there is nothing at risk and they seem unecessary and silly, but it's still part of the game. For example:

1 - Barrichello giving 2nd place to Schumacher at Austria 2001 was a case I perfectly understood and found reasonable. There was no knowing how strong a threat Coulthard would be even if Ferrari was the more competitive team. And there was the sudden risk of Williams taking a step up and being even more serious threats. So those extra 2 points were worth it at the time. It was aceptable and reasonable;

2 - OTOH, Barrichello giving the win to Schumacher at Austria 2002 was absolutely uncessary and uncalled for. Both WCC and WDC were a matter of time. The F2002 hit the ground running and had won every race so far with Schumacher. Barrichello had "only" one DNS and one 2nd place, but was easily more competitive than the Williams with the car. Those extra 4 points didn't alter the outcome of the season at all and still cost them a lot publicly. Unecessary, yeah. Still acceptable.

Given the whole tyre cliff mystery, Red Bull's orders were perfectly acceptable aand reasonable. Who knows if they would go wheel to wheel, lock up and suddenly having one or the other or both killing is tyres an dropping like a rock? Of course, Vettel messed up big time and now there is a PR **** storm. But it's his fault, not RB's.

But I don't understand the reasoning for Mercedes' orders. There is no telling how the season will unfold to know who will need the points more between Rosberg and Hamilton. And it made no difference for the WCC. All they achieved was bad publicity and internal unrest for dubious and unclear gains.

So, yeah, keep team orders and let the teams and drivers sort the messes they get into as it goes on.

[The Kanisteri]

Why is that justified?

Because teams has put lot of money on those expensive toys and tied several hundreds people work hours on them.

[Clatter]

Because teams has put lot of money on those expensive toys and tied several hundreds people work hours on them.

In that case all team orders are justified.

[Sausage]

I can't really vote in this since I think team orders should always be legal and thus are "right" (though maybe not morally) since you can't police them, BUT it's up to the drivers to accept them or not. Breaking or keeping to an order is not really about racing, it's about human relationships. Some drivers will risk their job doing it, others just risk burning their fingers (or finger in Vettels case), but unless the FIA allows pit to car changes during a race the drivers are free to do what they please.

[Group B]

'stolen' Hamilton's third place

[RealRacing]

Teamorders are like cancer for the sport. Artificial, phony, drivers apologing for overtaking maneuvers... It's an illness, a prestage of betting fraud. TV stations will have to change their intros showing no more racing cars but pit wall boffins calculating and sending messages to their drivers... Here's the point where I'm definitely losing my interest in Formula 1 after more than 20 years...

+1. I was surprised to see the option, "Team orders are only right at the end of the season, when it's already mathematically impossible for the second driver to win the WDC. If that's not the case drivers should ignore them." in 2nd place. There's still hope, I thought. Until I saw the first choice had the majority...And then, of course, there's no consistency in the responses for the RB and the Mercedes TOs. I guess fans have the F1 the majority of them deserves.

[drunkenmaster]

'stolen' Hamilton's third place

Well, people call it so when Vettel ignores team orders, so I thought it's just right to apply the same standard on a hypothetical Rosberg "theft".;)

[Kerch]

The drivers are just one part of the team, and I can't see any consistent way of dealing with team orders other than accepting they are allowed and the team have the right to use them. An engineer might be annoyed if he gets an order to do something he doesn't want to do, but he has to obey the team (or leave), and I don't see why the drivers should be any different. If a team constantly issues team orders that are strategically bad and cost them points, then they will lose out anyway.

[Lontano]

Umm, how do you know that???

The points Vettel would have missed if he had heeded the team order, or the points that Rosberg in fact has missed, could be just the points missing at the end of the season to win the championship...

I didn't mean that they won't affect the the championship, but that the reason why those teams decided to issue them were not based on the final outcome of the championship, but on the final outcome of this race only.

[John B]

Don't like team orders but understand them when there's a legitimate concern about getting a car to the finish or there's an obvious late-season ramification for the championship.

Back in the good old 1980s this was fairly common for a few years. Reutemann ignored orders to let Jones win Brazil, Arnoux did same to Prost in France, and there was the Villeneuve/Pironi controversy at Imola. Arnoux and Tambay had a couple of lesser disputes over aggressive passing at Ferrari as well.

[FerrariFanInTexas]

Holding station in the closing laps of the race is and always has been the least objectionable form of team orders.

A teammate out of contention for the WDC letting the sister car pass to help that driver's chances has also traditionally not been controversial.

An out of contention teammate making it difficult for other cars to pass (i.e. holding up other contenders) is sometimes seen as acceptable but there is often a lot of debate about it.

Making a teammate give up track position, especially early in the season, is the one that most agree is unsporting and unfair. As a Ferrari fan, even I was offended by Germany 2002. I hope that is not going to happen again.

The two sorts of team orders on display in Malaysia made sense, especially given the risk of the tire cliff, of an engine or gear box going off, or the risk of teammates yielding to the red mist and taking each other out.

Edited by FerrariFanInTexas, 27 March 2013 - 04:17.