Team orders
In motor racing, team orders is the practice of teams issuing instructions to drivers to deviate from the normal practice of racing against each other as they would against other teams' drivers. This can be accomplished either in advance, simply by establishing a pecking order between the drivers within the team, or by instructing a driver to let their teammate overtake or to hold position without the risk of collision.
This is generally done when one driver is behind in a particular race but ahead overall in a championship season. The team will then order their drivers to rearrange themselves on the track so as to give more championship points to a driver who is ahead in the championship. Team orders may also be given when multiple drivers are in a position far ahead of the field, being all but assured of the win. Team orders are issued to prevent drivers from racing each other, so that they conserve fuel, reduce the likelihood of mechanical failure, and avoid a collision. Such orders have been made on countless occasions in the history of motorsport, sometimes causing great acrimony between the team and the disadvantaged driver, and controversy in the media.
Team orders in Formula One
Early examples
Such orders were legal and accepted historically in motor racing. In the early years of the Formula One World Championship, it was even legal for a driver to give up his car during the race to the team leader if the latter's car had broken down. In 1955, the Mercedes team asked Juan Manuel Fangio to let his teammate Stirling Moss win his home Grand Prix at Aintree. Fangio obliged, refusing to attack Moss in the closing stages of the race, and came home in second place, less than a second behind Moss.The 1964 season saw a dramatic finale in which Lorenzo Bandini moved over for John Surtees during the Mexican Grand Prix, allowing Surtees to get the necessary points to beat Graham Hill to the World Championship.
In the 1979 German Grand Prix Clay Regazzoni was instructed by the Williams pits not to attack his teammate Alan Jones for the lead, despite Regazzoni being ahead in the championship. The status of Jones as number one driver at Williams lasted until 1981, when Carlos Reutemann deliberately ignored team orders at the 1981 Brazilian Grand Prix and did not allow him to pass. This resulted in a long feud between the two that eventually led to Jones' retirement at the end of the season, with Reutemann missing out on the World Championship for one single point.
At the 1982 French Grand Prix, René Arnoux enraged Renault by refusing to give way to his teammate Alain Prost, who at the time was ahead in the championship. However, those three points had no impact, as Prost finished fourth in the championship that year, ten points behind eventual champion Keke Rosberg.
During the 1983 South African Grand Prix, the Brabham-BMW team asked driver Riccardo Patrese to cede Nelson Piquet the race win if it ensured Piquet would win the driver's championship. However, this did not prove to be necessary as Patrese won the race while Piquet came third, enough to secure him the championship.
At the 1991 Japanese Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna, who had already secured the championship title that year, conceded the race win to Gerhard Berger, saying after the race that he had done so because "he had been very helpful".
Riccardo Patrese found himself in a similar situation to what he did in 1983 again in 1992, when he waved his Williams teammate Nigel Mansell through during the 1992 French Grand Prix, which Mansell went on to win ahead of Patrese in second.
Negative media reception
In the late 1990s, incidents of team orders began to be reported more prominently by the media, and public reaction to the more blatant examples became extremely negative. At the 1997 European Grand Prix, Jacques Villeneuve, already with the title in the bag, was asked by his engineer via radio to let the McLaren cars pass as "They've been very helpful", while at the 1998 Australian Grand Prix, the McLaren drivers David Coulthard and Mika Häkkinen caused a stir by switching position at the end of the race in order to respect a previous agreement.In contrast to prior examples, the 1997 Japanese Grand Prix saw a more sophisticated use of team orders, where Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine began the race light on fuel, allowing him to get ahead of the superior Williams cars and hold them up, to the benefit of teammate Michael Schumacher.
At the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, the two Jordans of Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher found themselves unexpectedly in the lead after a collision between Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard. Ralf was subsequently ordered not to overtake Hill, to assure Jordan of a 1-2 finish. Following this, Michael angrily bought out his brother's contract for £2 million and told Eddie Jordan that Ralf would never race for Jordan again.
At the 1999 German Grand Prix, Mika Salo, driving for Ferrari in place of the injured Michael Schumacher, was leading the race when he was told to allow teammate Eddie Irvine to pass. Salo complied, giving up what would have been his only Formula One victory in 109 career races. Irvine ultimately failed to win the championship that year, losing out to Mika Häkkinen.
At the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello was ordered to allow Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher to pass to obtain the win. This received huge amounts of negative attention from the media, as the order was issued shortly before both drivers crossed the finish line. Both drivers were unhappy about the situation. Schumacher refused to take the top step of the podium and the centre seat, normally reserved to the winner, during the post-race press conference, and the team was punished for breach of podium procedure. At the United States Grand Prix the same year, Schumacher appeared to have returned the favour by giving Barrichello the win by the record smallest margin of 0.011 seconds on the finishing line, though it is assumed Schumacher was trying to trigger a dead-heat finish.
At the 2002 French Grand Prix, the financially troubled Arrows team had failed to reach an agreement with its sponsors, thus the team ordered both its drivers, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Enrique Bernoldi to deliberately fail to qualify by posting times slower than the 107% rule.
Team orders ban
After the 2002 season, FIA announced that "Team Orders that could influence the outcome of a race" were banned, although they were sometimes still implemented discreetly.Ferrari team orders at the 2010 German Grand Prix
For example, this has sometimes been achieved as easily as a team getting on the radio to the slower driver and pointing out that his teammate is quicker. The slower driver then lets the quicker driver through without the need for an overt "directive" from the team. This happened, for example, at the 2010 German Grand Prix, Felipe Massa's race engineer Rob Smedley was heard to say to his driver "Fernando Alonso|Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand that message?". Moments later, Massa eased back and allowed Alonso past.''Crashgate''
Perhaps the most controversial use of team orders, occurring during the period where team orders were explicitly banned, was the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, where the Renault F1 team used team orders to cause Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash deliberately on the fourteenth lap of the race in order to bring out the safety car, allowing his team-mate Alonso to win the race. Subsequent investigation the following year resulted in Renault receiving a two-year suspended disqualification and Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, two major figures involved with the team, being banned from the sport, although this was later appealed and reversed under a settlement that forbade them from working in any FIA-sanctioned events for a time.Ban repealed
At the end of the 2010 season, the FIA conceded that the team orders rule was not working and needed to be reviewed. As of 2011, the team orders rule no longer appeared in the sporting regulations.At the 2012 United States Grand Prix, Ferrari broke the FIA seal on the gearbox of Felipe Massa's car in order to trigger a 5-place grid penalty. This moved him behind Fernando Alonso and shifted both cars onto the "clean" side of the race track, to ensure Alonso the fastest start possible on the slippery asphalt of the brand-new Circuit of the Americas.
At the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel was criticised for passing his team-mate Mark Webber to win the race against "Multi 21", an order from his team to hold position.
At the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix, the Mercedes team ordered Valtteri Bottas to yield his third position for Lewis Hamilton, who had a better chance to attack second-placed Kimi Räikkönen. When it was clear that Hamilton was not able to overcome Räikkönen, Hamilton gave back the position to Bottas in the last corner of the race, costing him three points in the Drivers' Championship. Those three points did not matter in the end, as Hamilton won the title by 46 points.
At the 2018 German Grand Prix, after Vettel crashed and brought out the safety car, Hamilton inherited the lead, with team-mate Bottas behind him on fresher tyres. When the safety car period ended, Bottas initially attacked Hamilton for the lead, before being told by Mercedes' team strategist James Vowles to hold his position, handing Hamilton the win. Bottas continued to play second fiddle to Hamilton at the 2018 Russian Grand Prix, where he qualified on pole and subsequently led the race until being ordered to yield the lead to his teammate, who was ahead in the Drivers' Championship.
At the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, Ferrari ordered Charles Leclerc to hold position after he attempted to overtake team-mate Vettel. Two races later, at the Chinese Grand Prix, Leclerc was ordered by Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto to let Vettel pass him. Binotto later said the team made the “right choice” by making the call, as Vettel finished on the podium in third whilst Leclerc finished fifth.
At the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix, Red Bull ordered Sergio Pérez to give up his lead to his teammate Max Verstappen. Pérez stated that he was happy with the team but at the same time he demanded an explanation from the team regarding the team orders given to him. Red Bull would again be accused of using team orders during the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the team radio telling Pérez not to fight his teammate Verstappen in the main straight, however Red Bull team principal Christian Horner denied the accusation of giving team orders and Pérez defended the team decision as he experienced tyre degradation in the main straight while some speculated the order was given to avoid another 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix incident. Later, in the 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix, Max Verstappen controversially refused to obey team orders to let his teammate Sergio Pérez pass. With Pérez falling down the order after the second safety car restart, his Red Bull Racing teammate, Verstappen, was given permission to pass him in order to overtake Fernando Alonso's Alpine. After failing to overtake Alonso, Verstappen was told by his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, to give the position back to Pérez, to assist Pérez in taking second in the Drivers' Championship. Verstappen refused to comply with team orders and told Lambiase not to ask him to do such a thing again, stating that he had his "reasons" to defy such orders, and that he had discussed those reasons with the team before.
At the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren driver Lando Norris was ordered to give up his lead to his teammate Oscar Piastri, after the team boxed Norris first, resulting in him undercutting the then-leading Piastri. Norris initially was hesitant to give up his lead as he was looking to gain his second win in Formula One, as well as an advantage in the Drivers Championship. However with three laps remaining, Norris gave up his race-leading position to his teammate after much convincing from his race engineer William Joesph. Norris finished second, while his teammate won his maiden Grand Prix. This decision by McLaren created quite a controversy as some believed that Piastri was handed the win by Norris and that Norris deserved to win as he was fighting for the drivers championship. However others believed that Piastri deserved the win as McLaren should have pitted Piastri first, avoiding the undercut altogether which would have most likely resulted in Piastri winning the race. McLaren would again issue team orders at the sprint race for the 2024 São Paulo Grand Prix, where Piastri qualified on pole position, and Norris qualified in second. The cars were ordered to switch positions on lap 22, and Norris went on to win the sprint race. The decision was made in an effort to gain as many points as possible against Norris' championship rival, Max Verstappen.
Team orders involving McLaren, Piastri and Norris would again be invoked again the following season at the 2025 Italian Grand Prix. Team orders were invoked in this instance because Norris, who had been the ahead of Piastri in second place, suffered a slow pit stop having allowed Piastri, who had been running in third place behind to pit first to enable to avoid being undercut by the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. Norris had agreed to allow Piastri to pit before Norris after McLaren promised Piastri would not undercut Norris through the stops. However, a slow pit stop for Norris meant he came out behind Piastri and team orders were invoked. Piastri was left unhappy with the order but reluctantly complied. The move to have Norris and Piastri swap positions was seen as particularly controversial by some fans as both Norris and Piastri were considered direct rivals competing for the 2025 drivers' championship. In the end, the team orders ended up playing a key role in the outcome of the championship, with Norris gaining 3 points thanks to them, and he ended up winning the championship by only 2 points from Max Verstappen. However, team principal Andrea Stella said the decision for team orders was due to being Norris's own choice to pit second due to being guaranteed by the team that he would not be undercut by his team mate and that the decision made was consistent with the one made in Hungary the previous year where the roles of Norris and Piastri were reversed.