F1 Team Orders - Why, When, and How?

Max's secret identity revealed

Anyone who watched the Brazil GP last weekend, and maybe some that didn't, will have seen two main stories taking up the column inches. 

First up was the superb showing for Mercedes and specifically George Russell as he secured his first victory in Formula 1.

Secondly was the murkier side of F1 as we heard Max refuse to follow team orders and give up his place for Checo.

For those not familiar with the history of team orders, and maybe for those who want a stroll down memory lane, we have compiled a quick overview of team orders in F1 and also picked out some memorable ones.

So, what are team orders?

We need to remember that while each driver is trying to win for themselves, they are part of a team and the team wants to maximize it's points total for the constructors championship.  

In addition, there are also times when the team might be trying to ensure maximum points for one of the drivers, especially if only one of them is in contention for the drivers championship.

There are two main scenarios in which we see team orders given.

1) The need to switch order

Imagine the scenario where driver A is faster than driver B and they have other cars ahead of them both.  

From the team perspective is more beneficial to instruct driver B to let driver A overtake so that they can see if they can hunt the other cars down.  

Not literally though like in the 50s!

Another reason for this call might be strategy differences where each car is on a different tire compound and/or race strategy.  Driver A being held up by driver B might ruin the strategy for driver A so the team may swap the cars around.  

This is quite often seen where our driver B in this example is on the hard compound and driver A is on the softs.  

Rather than risk letting the faster driver A make a competitive overtake, the team will instruct driver B to move over so as to avoid any potential collisions.

It could also be that driver B is not a title contender but driver A is in contention.  The team may switch the cars to maximize driver A's points haul.

Regardless of why, the key to executing this is to ensure that driver B can let driver A overtake in a spot where they do not lose time and risk being exposed to attacks from drivers behind them.

2) The need to hold station

The other type of team order is to tell them not to race.

Again, there are a number of reasons for this call being made.

It might be to protect the leading driver as they need to maximize their points, a result of tire strategies, or it could well be that the team are happy with the potential combined points haul and just need the drivers to "bring it home".

This last one is quite often seen when a team are on for a 1-2 finish and, after maybe allowing them to race each other for a period of time, may make a call with a few laps remaining to remove the risk of them taking each other out.

When did it all begin?

Team orders are as old as F1 but have had a checkered existence down the years and the attitude to them has evolved along the way.

1950s to 1970s

In 1951 the rules actually allowed for cars to be swapped! Alfa Romeo instructed Fagioli to swap cars with Fangio as the Argentine's car had suffered issues.  It's fair to say that Fagioli did not take well to this as, despite ceding to the instruction, he quit the team right after.

That no.4 will win, just not with that driver

Back in 1955 the Mercedes team instructed Fangio to allow Moss to win the British Grand Prix in front of his home fans.  Fangio was fine with this apparently but did push his team mate all the way by staying a second behind him as if to remind him he could have taken him any moment.

Just one year later Fangio was to be the recipient of beneficial team orders as Luigi Musso was requested to give up his car as Fangio had retired his car. 

Musso, however, was not playing along and refused to give up his car.  Peter Collins, who was also driving a Mercedes and in with a shot at the title, voluntarily gave up his car and in doing so gave up his title chance and allowed Fangio to secure his fourth drivers title.

Collins - What a team player!

As F1 moved through the decades it was openly accepted that teams tended to have a number one driver that would get beneficial treatment.  The sport and the watching public seemed to have no real issue with this.

However, the eighties and nineties would see a rise in the controversial moments that would eventually lead to an attempt to ban team orders.

1980s

In 1981 Alan Jones was the number one driver at Williams.  At the Brazil GP that year, Carlos Reutemann was instructed many times via the pit board to let Jones through.  

The instruction was ignored and Reutemann went on to win the race.  Jones was so infuriated with his actions that he did not show up for the podium presentation.

The day the invisible man came 2nd

A year later at the French GP, the Renault team had a 1-2 finish at their home GP.  What should have been a cause for celebration was actually anything but.

A pre-race team order had stated that if Rene Arnoux was ahead of Alain Prost that he would move over to help Prost's title challenge.  

With the two coming home a clear 1-2 was on the cards but Arnoux refused to move over for Prost and instead took the win himself.

Mon amie....not

Later that same year another refusal to accept orders took place at the San Marino GP.  

Didier Peroni was told to hold station behind Giles Villenueve and bring home the 1-2.  Peroni refused and overtook Villeneuve to win the race.  Apparently their relationship deteriorated to the point that Villeneuve refused to speak to Peroni and made it his mission to beat him from that point on.  

While there are other reasons involved, it is thought that his desire to push himself to beat Peroni's time was a contributing factor to his fatal accident in Belgium later that year.

1990s and early 2000s

The early nineties was fairly quiet for team order controversy then all hell broke loose over the short period of 1998 to 2002.

At the Australian GP in 1998 the McLaren pair of David Coulthard & Mika Hakkinen arrived with such a pace advantage that they felt assured of a 1-2.  They qualified first and second and had a pre-race agreement that whoever made the first corner in the lead would be allowed to keep it.

Hakkinen was in pole and had a great start ensuring he took the first corner and secure the pre-race agreement.  In fact he took off and built such a gap that no such agreement would have been needed anyway.  

However, on lap 35, he took a pit stop that had not been scheduled allowing Coulthard to take the lead.  In the final stages of the race Coulthard pulled over to let Hakkinen back though much to the dislike of the spectators and TV commentators.  

David, give him the position Hakk

McLaren later claimed that their team radio had been hacked and someone had summoned Hakkinen into the pits which had unfairly influenced the race.  Therefore asking Coulthard to let him through was simply rectifying the situation.

The World Motorsport Council was not amused and, while McLaren escaped punishment, they stated future instances would face sanctions.

Later that year at a wet Belgian GP, a crash between Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard saw the Jordan pair of Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher placed in a 1-2.  However Ralf was much quicker than Damon and catching the Brit.

Hill came on team radio to request that due to the spray and poor conditions that they not risk taking each other out and should bring home a 1-2.  Ralf was not happy with the decision but did abide by the team order but again the watching audience was not pleased at seeing a race won under instructions.

Hill & Schumacher NOT colliding

If 1998 lit the touch paper of team order controversy then 2002 was when that fuse reached the explosives.

It is the Austrian GP and fan favorite Rubens Barrichello is leading in his Ferrari.  Michael Schumacher is second but this result will not harm his title hopes as he is crushing the opposition.  

Life was good in the world of the prancing horse.

And then it wasn't.

The watching world gasped in disgust as, on the final run to the flag, Rubens lifted and allowed Schumacher to pass him.

No Michael, this is so not right

Speaking to Brazilian TV a few years later he revealed how, during the final few laps, the team radio had intensified in their demands that this was important for the title (even though it wasn't) and that they would need to look at his contract closely if he did not pull over.  

On the podium Schumacher invited Rubens up to the top step and gave him the winners trophy.  Ferrari were fined for this as it was a breach of the podium ceremony.  This was made all the more bizarre by the fact it was just not needed at all.

Following the outcry caused by the team orders, the FiA banned team orders from the sport.

Or so they thought.

2002-2011 - The "Banned" Years

The main problem with banning team orders is that how do you actually police it? Unless a team gave out explicit orders over the radio, there was no way of knowing if pre-race orders had been given or if any of the race codes given out would be real engine modes or brake settings to be applied by the driver or really a secret code for team orders.

*Unless you use a code...then we won't know

There were many occurrences of what appeared to be team orders at play, yet no one could really prove it.  

In fact nothing shows this more than perhaps the biggest set of controversial team orders ever given in F1 at the 2008 Singapore GP.

Why does this showcase the secret aspect to team orders?

Well, it wasn't until a year later that we even found out about it and that was only because Nelson Piquet Jr turned into a whistleblower.  

You can find all the details out by searching for "Crashgate" so I won't go over the whole thing here as it's an entire blog in it's own right.

Found my parking spot

The short story is that an elaborate set of team orders was set up to ensure Alonso would win the race by getting Piquet Jr to crash at a certain corner in the race on a certain lap.

This went down as one of the biggest scandals ever to hit F1.

A couple of years later, on a much smaller scale of scandal, Ferrari made a mess of the "secret code" approach to team orders and basically just gave them out live on air.

In the 2010 Hockenheim race, Alonso made a pass on Massa that seemed far too easy.  The radio message that preceded it was hardly Enigma levels of encryption so kinda gave away the fact they had broken the rules.

Massa's race engineer, Rob Smedley came on the radio and said:

"Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?"

This us just FYI and in no way a banned team order

After Alonso overtook him Rob was back on the radio with:

"Good lad. Just stick with it now, sorry."

Ferrari tried to claim that these were not team orders however the very apology from Rob to Felipe confirmed their guilt.  As a result Ferrari were fined for breaching the team orders ban.

After this the FiA gave up explicitly banning team orders and they no longer feature in the rule book.

That was the end of the rule breaking aspect but not the end of the sour taste that team orders leaves for the fans.

2012 onwards

In 2013 we had the classic "Multi-21" jibe from Mark Webber to Vettel after the race to vent his frustration at Seb refusing the team orders that had been given.

"Multi 21" was the Red Bull code given to maintain positions. 

The driver in car number 2 (Webber) must remain ahead of the other driver in car number 1 (Vettel).

Webber took the instruction and, with 13 laps left, turned his engine mode down to coast home in what he assumed would be a 1-2 led by him.  

Vettel had other ideas, didn't turn down his engine, and passed Webber to take the win. 

No, they didn't say Multi-12

Vettel received a large amount of backlash although some agreed that all races should be run under a "let them race" mantra.

It's really this refusal of drivers to adhere to team orders that generates the headlines these days and still splits the fans or when a "fan favorite" is not allowed to win a race their driving has deserved.  

A certain Valtteri Bottas has been on the end of those calls a number of times none more so than Russia 2018 where his certain victory was given to Lewis at the request of the team.  

Bottas beaming at his 2nd place finish

it made him understand why some drivers refuse to follow team orders and he admitted to considering retirement due to the way it made him feel to give up that win.  

He joined the ranks of the order ignoring drivers in the 2021 Spanish GP as he refused to let Hamilton by and instead forced him to execute a proper overtake, holding him up in the process. 

Max himself is also not a newcomer to the world of defying team orders.

Back in 2015 there was a famous team radio exchange with Max and his engineer during his Toro Rosso days at the Singapore GP.  

He was told "Max, we need to swap positions" as the team wanted him to let Sainz through to which we heard one word from Max; "NO!"

La-la-la...can't hear you

In fairness to Max, Sainz was not exactly swarming all over his gearbox and it was the penultimate lap.  

In Brazil, however, Max's refusal to essentially give the place back to Checo was more unique in terms of the fact he had already benefitted from the first team order for Checo to let him by but then refused his side of the deal after he didn't catch Alonso.

Given he has already won the title, and Checo is battling for second spot plus the huge wingman job Checo did all year for Max, this recent team order refusal is leaving a very bitter taste for many fans.

Here's an idea...given no one seems to really like team orders and we all love it when we hear them say "let them race", maybe the FiA should ban team orders.

Oh, hang on a sec ;-)