Should team orders be allowed?

[cider_and_toast]

On this issue of misleading the stewards, It's a complicated one but the way I look at it is this: In the case of Lewis Hamilton he lied and was found not guilty, subsequent investigation proved that he'd lied and therefore the original not guilty verdict was overturned and the punishment increased because of the lie.

In the case of Ferrari at Hockenheim, they were called before the stewards and asked to present their case. They presented it and were found guilty. I.E. there case wasn't believed. They were then punished based on being found guilty of rules 39.1 and 151.c.

If you imagine the case of a murderer (ok, pretty dramatic I know) who goes before a court and pleads not guilty. He then presents his case before the court while the prosecution attempt to prove that he did commit the murder. If the murderer is then found guilty he is charged based on his crime and not the fact that he lied to the court. It would only be classed as purgery if the murderer was found innocent based on a lie within his case.

That's the way I see it.

 

[cosicave]

Hmm… an interesting point there cider.

In the case of 'normal' law, a consideration is made as to the amount of time and work involved in proving a case. Of course this is always exacerbated by an attempt to conceal the truth. This was Max Mosley's stance on prosecuting any cases within Formula 1, and was probably a factor in the conclusions drawn with McLaren, and Hamilton's naive attempt to comply with his employer's stance, culminating technically as a 'lie', with all its incumbent retribution.

I do not think Alonso's case is identical, but the sooner they all 'come clean' about it the better.

I am intrigued to discover how Jean Todt is going to react to this whole affair, since it involves his old team and there must surely be many alliances/allegiances which still exist there. His position is not easy, but no doubt Max Mosley will previously have offered him advice on the difficulty of the job he chose to undertake.

 

[cosicave]

…It's not all about the prize money, but the marketing value. The marketing value of the WDC is much bigger than that for the WCC, even for the teams.

This is a very important point. There is an awful lot more to this than a straight-forward one-off payment.

 

[snowy]

I have only glanced at some of the most recent posts but I thought I better vote and tell you why I voted the way I did.

I'm pretty sure that the myriad views all have strengths and weaknesses, there appears - to me at least - to be no right or wrong answer to this problem. F1 has to chose one and the teams need to stick to it, since they can't stick to a ban on team orders and will always circumvent it cleverly, less cleverly and blatantly badly they have to abandon the rule.

Team orders should be allowed if only for the facts that the letter of the law is unenforcible, and the intent of the law is disingenuous, in that it denies the existence of a host of engineers, designers, sponsors, etc working as a team.

 

[Muddytalker]

Hear, hear

 

[RickD]

I am intrigued to discover how Jean Todt is going to react to this whole affair, since it involves his old team and there must surely be many alliances/allegiances which still exist there. His position is not easy, but no doubt Max Mosley will previously have offered him advice on the difficulty of the job he chose to undertake.

The only other problem Jean will have is the fact that his son manages Massa. Whether this could be seen as a conflict of interest or not is debatable though.

 

[Brogan]

Not forgetting of course it was Jean Todt who was responsible for the team orders rule being introduced.

 

[Jen]

I read a bit in the paper today which reported that Bernie E had called for the team rules edict to be removed. I'll see if I can find a link.

 

[Jen]

Apparently, the original article was in The Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formul ... ds-newsxml

 

[fat jez]

Apparently, the original article was in The Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formul ... ds-newsxml

I wouldn't believe it then

 

[Speshal]

Slightly but still relevant and worth it for the

Ferrari Back On Form

 

[snowy]

 

[Speshal]

 

[sportsman]

I voted no.
I wrote this article some time ago and I was steered to this topic.

http://www.formula1journal.com/2010/06/ ... tsman.html

 

[Flood1]

Well, I had a hundred bucks on Alonso to win, so I'm happy with the way things worked out. I sure hope I don't have to give the money back after the WMSC convines.

Orders are not sporting and I don't like it. I suppose I would drop the rule against it, but I reserve the right to say terrible things and curse loudly about those who use them.

 

[Brogan]

Well, I had a hundred bucks on Alonso to win, so I'm happy with the way things worked out. I sure hope I don't have to give the money back after the WMSC convines.

I was wondering how that works.

Do the bookies* pay out or are all bets frozen until the verdict on Sep 10th?

In other sports, if the result is fixed aren't the bets null and void?



*This is an abbreviation of bookmakers which is who bets are placed with, not sure what you call them in the US.

 

[Matthew Little]

I think team orders should be allowed. I'm going to go against the grain here and expect much gnashing of teeth in my direction but as McZ said they've been part of the sport since the year dot.

How many times did Fangio, one of the greatest of all time, pull into the pits with a poorly car, wait for the team to call one of his team mates in, jump in to that car and zoom off again? Most of the greatest drivers of the 50's and early 60's did that on more than one occasion.

The 1964 world title was decided on the last lap because Lorenzo Bandini let John Surtees by after receiving orders to do so. A few laps earlier Bandini had a coming together with Graham Hill which took the other championship challenger out of the race but that's another story. (Jim Clark had already fallen back with an oil leak).

I can remember numerous races in the 80s and 90s where team orders have been brought into play and it was a given in those days.

The problem that we have is that the rule of "no team orders" was brought in after the most cynical bit of race manipulation that the sport has ever seen. I refer of course to Austria in 02. Listening to Schuey being interviewed today he still says (all though admitting it wasn't the best thing at the time) that it was the right thing to do. His reasoning being it doesn't matter if it was race 20 or race 2 if you lose the championship by that many points then you will always ask what if.

I can understand team orders in the final few races when there is nothing left for one driver to win but there is for the other but not when both drivers still have a chance regardless of the gap. Having said that, you can't have a rule that covers both situations. On balance I would have to say that the teams should be allowed to run it as they see fit and face the consequences from public opinion afterwards. A cynical team order decision will effect a teams reputation far more than any sanction from the FIA.

I'm now going to duck.

I agree with Cider on this one. *Don't worry, Cider, I'm watching for the inevitable pitchforks........ .....*

Team orders are a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" part of Formula 1. As Steve Matchett pointed out on the Fox broadcast of the German GP, there have always been, in some way, shape or form, team orders(a point David Hobbs agreed with.....) and, even with the Sporting Regs' the way they're written, there are going to always be team orders........the teams are just going to couch them in the language Massa's engineer, Rob Smedley, used when he made that call to Massa about Alonso being faster than he was.

---Now, did Ferrari violate the spirit of the law in terms of team orders? By the way that, (a) the Sporting Regs are written and, (b)by the way Massa moved over to let Alonso by, yes they did.
---Did Ferrari violate the letter of the law? No, for one reason......Ferrari did not overtly order Massa to let Alonso by and unless I'm mistaken, all the Sporting Regs' say is that a team cannot order one driver to stand aside for the other driver. Call it semantics, call it parsing words, but as long as they did not overtly order Massa aside, they didn't violate that particular regulation.

OTOH, any team that tries something along the lines of Ferrari's actions Sunday needn't worry about the FIA.....the court of public opinion, it seems, has spoken and spoken loudly about it.

 

[Bullfrog]

Well, I had a hundred bucks on Alonso to win, so I'm happy with the way things worked out. I sure hope I don't have to give the money back after the WMSC convines.

I was wondering how that works.

Do the bookies* pay out or are all bets frozen until the verdict on Sep 10th?

In other sports, if the result is fixed aren't the bets null and void?



*This is an abbreviation of bookmakers which is who bets are placed with, not sure what you call them in the US.

If they do pay out there's no comeback, they can't decide that you lost after all and take their money back. Several bookmakers paid out on Newcastle winning the Premier League in 97(?) when they were 12 points clear approaching the end of the season, only for them to capitulate spectacularly and end up second.

I guess they might refuse to pay out until the result is confirmed by the WMSC, I think it more likely that they'd just offer you your money back.

 

[Flood1]

My prob is that I didn't use a bookie. It's not legal to bet on F1 in the States, except in Vegas. I used an Italian named Vinnie. Vinnie doesn't have a business card. If you have a problem with a business associate, call Vinnie. I think I'll just give him the cash back and forget about it. Even Stevens as we say here. No winner, no loser.

But seriously, I hate team orders, but as a team owner or operator, I would understand exactly why they are employed, and if I were in their position, I would do the same.

 

[Wombcat]

This seems to be going the distance.

Thing is, no-one disputes that as of yesterday team orders were against the rules. After the race the entire Ferrari team tried to imply that there was no instruction to follow team orders, but their claims were rejected. As of today Luca di Montezemolo appears to have said that of course there was an instruction to follow team orders, you'd be a fool to believe otherwise.

I personally don't approve of team orders on the track, if Ferrari want to give Alonso 50% more power and the best aero kit ahead of the race, unfair, but at least we'll see both drivers racing, so crack on. However, currently team orders are against the rules, Ferrari have effectively confessed to breaking the rules. If the rules need to be changed, that's one thing, but with the rules in effect it's the job of the Stewards and the FIA to enforce them without exception, they are officials and not Gods, so the decision regarding their action seems to be in stone, now it's as to the appropriate nature of the punishment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8856761.stm

The thing is that team orders aren't allowed, but nothing prevents a team to tell their drivers before the race what they should do. That's basically a team order as well.
So if Ferrari had said beforehand to Massa "if you're towards the end of the race in a position before Alonso, you'll have to let him through, but do it in a way nobody will think it's a team order. If you don't you lose your job", And then during the race had told him "everything is going according to plan, you know what do to.", he makes a 'mistake', lets Alonso through and everybody is happy, but it's still a teamorder.
So even though teamorders are illegal, it's still very easy to give teamorders.