I really don't get all the fuss about this. Ferrari used team orders.. so what? The are multiple instances of team orders every season. Hell, there have already been at least two instances of top teams using team orders this season, but nobody kicked up a fuss about those. Why the furore this time? Because it's Ferrari and Alonso?

Quote from joshdifabio :

Would you tell me if you think teams should also be punished for swapping their drivers when they're not racing in the points? Be honest.

If the teams all agreed to a rule prohibiting that, then of course. They can't pick and choose which rules to enforce.

This thread has been derailed by people stepping on to soapboxes arguing that the rule (which has been in place since 2002) shouldn't exist, you'd think in 8 years everyone would have said all that could be said on that matter. This weekend has changed nothing. It does exist, the only question is whether Ferrari breached it. Frankly any other discussion on the team orders matter is irrelevant to the German GP and should be in the general F1 discussion thread.

Quote from JPeace :

The fuss is this. The rule is there. If everyone is breaking the rule, why the hell is the rule there in the first place? Either remove it or punish people properly is what Im saying...

I understand what you're saying and to an extent I agree. However, it's all very circumstantial, and as long as teams are allowed to communicate with their drivers during the race it always will be.

Had Massa made a deliberate mistake in turn 6, thus allowing Alonso to pass him on the exit in a more believable manner, I suspect there would be far less outcry, even if everyone was still fairly certain that the pass was engineered by the team. And that is the issue with the rule. There can be no black and white with this rule unless a team actually admits to giving the order.

Quote from sinbad :

If the teams all agreed to a rule prohibiting that, then of course. They can't pick and choose which rules to enforce.

This thread has been derailed by people stepping on to soapboxes arguing that the rule (which has been in place since 2002) shouldn't exist, you'd think in 8 years everyone would have said all that could be said on that matter. This weekend has changed nothing. It does exist, the only question is whether Ferrari breached it. Frankly any other discussion on the team orders matter is irrelevant to the German GP and should be in the general F1 discussion thread.

Clearly it's relevant to the German GP since all of the discussion spawned from the incident on Sunday. All of the discussion related to team orders should be in one place - to have two separate discussions on the same topic would simply result in duplicate posts in both threads which would make no sense whatsoever.

But back on topic - do you think that McLaren asking their drivers not to race one another should also have been punished? Or is it only a problem when a team actually reverses the order of their drivers?

Edit: Sorry, I didn't intend for the first paragraph of this post to sound so confrontational.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Having a team swap drivers doesn't invalidate the sporting contest - it's a sport for teams and drivers, and the teams are thus in a position to choose whether to allow racing within the team or not, to further both the team and the drivers championship best. That should be allowed.

The rule should be removed forthwith.

The FIA has done more to bring the sport into disrepute than any team over the last 60 years. It is they who should be banned, not a team serving the interests of its drivers and itself.

This man speaks sense.

Quote from joshdifabio :

Clearly it's relevant to the German GP since all of the discussion spawned from the incident on Sunday. All of the discussion related to team orders should be in one place - to have two separate discussions on the same topic would simply result in duplicate posts in both threads which would make no sense whatsoever.

But back on topic - do you think that McLaren asking their drivers not to race one another should also have been punished? Or is it only a problem when a team actually reverses the order of their drivers?

Edit: Sorry, I didn't intend for the first paragraph of this post to sound so confrontational.

It's fine.

I think if there is a rule every breach should be punished, no picking and choosing.

That's why it isn't really relevant to the German GP. The only question here, imo, should be whether or not Ferrari broke the rule, and if so, how severe their punishment should be.

For the FIA to review this rule after an incident like this would be like FIFA reviewing goal line technology after the England-Germany game. One incident changes nothing. Anyone with half a brain could foresee something like this happening, so you have to assume that decisions to put these rules in place (or not) are made with that knowledge.

team orders exist and everyone know it , to me what makes this case different is they did not try to hide it and its that sort of arrogance that gets up peoples noses.

Ferrari have treated the fans with contempt and they should be punished for that.

It makes me wonder what planet Ferrari are from to think the punters and officials would buy that load of shit. Yes its probably a dumb rule to begin with but seriously there has to be a better way than trying to dupe people.

Quote from joshdifabio :

Clearly it's relevant to the German GP since all of the discussion spawned from the incident on Sunday. All of the discussion related to team orders should be in one place - to have two separate discussions on the same topic would simply result in duplicate posts in both threads which would make no sense whatsoever.

But back on topic - do you think that McLaren asking their drivers not to race one another should also have been punished? Or is it only a problem when a team actually reverses the order of their drivers?

Edit: Sorry, I didn't intend for the first paragraph of this post to sound so confrontational.

I believes the intention of the rule is to catch teams that swap their positions when they're leading and second. (Just my personal opinion)

But they have to leave the rules worded that way, to ensure they can catch the team when it happens. They can't really just go and describe under whatever circumstances would you be guilty of team orders in the rules, as the teams will simply avoid those circumstances when they're manipulating the results.

Therefore, the rule just simply state that any team orders that interfere the race results is prohibited. But there are always team orders, surely telling a driver to pit is a team order that may interfere with the race results? Hence that's where my opinion arose for my first paragraph.

And I guess we shall see from the WMC whether such a rule is really unworkable, or what further penalties, if any, would be handed down to Ferrari.

Quote from Storm_Cloud :

I wouldn't say Massa has lost any respect. If anything, he has gained sympathy for being the victim of team orders. Only a minority would suggest that he should have, as an employee, disregarded an order from his employer (thereby breaking his contract). He has handled himself with a fair degree of dignity through the matter, which is what you would expect having seen him handle the agony of losing the championship in 2008.

Actually in Brazil Massa lost credit, and lost fans. I'm hearing more and more people saying they will stop supporting him. People didn't forgive Barrichello yet for letting Schumacher pass on Austria.


Barrichello is much better regarded outside Brazil than inside. People don't recognize him as a man with honor because they say he sold his soul to Ferrari for money. He is regarded here as a emotionally weak driver and mercenary. Except for who really understand about motorsport, who recognize him as a fast and talented driver, although not the #1.

Doing things like loosing a race for money (what in last instance we can say that Massa did) is not something that a Brazilian would be proud of. Ok, as an employee people have to respect contracts, but motorsport is usually connected to bravery and being like a hero. A decision like that is considered like braking an opponents leg in football match to avoid loosing the match because the team manager asked for....


But in other way, I remember when Massa was suspended from Sauber for not letting Heidfeld pass on a race after a team order (at the same year that Barrichello let Schumacher pass), and had to wait a year to come back, so I can understand (a little bit) why he did that.

Quote from richo :

team orders exist and everyone know it , to me what makes this case different is they did not try to hide it and its that sort of arrogance that gets up peoples noses.

Ferrari have treated the fans with contempt and they should be punished for that.

It makes me wonder what planet Ferrari are from to think the punters and officials would buy that load of shit. Yes its probably a dumb rule to begin with but seriously there has to be a better way than trying to dupe people.

To me this is duping people :

Pitwall : The bananas are red. I repeat. The bananas. Are. Red.

Then Massa misses braking point, runs wide, loses place.

No?

The message right after the pass shouldn't have been : "Good lad, now stick with him, sorry."

It should have been : "WTF are you doing ??!! You're supposed to fake a mistake or some shit so that the people who don't fully understand the sport don't feel sorry for you and/or robbed of a fight."

Not sure if it's arrogance or just plain dumb management not to have something pre-planned for that situation. Alonso's missing a gear comment on the parade lap was just hilarious. He surely didn't know how poor the acting had been on the other side.

Quote from JCTK :

I believes the intention of the rule is to catch teams that swap their positions when they're leading and second. (Just my personal opinion)

But they have to leave the rules worded that way, to ensure they can catch the team when it happens. They can't really just go and describe under whatever circumstances would you be guilty of team orders in the rules, as the teams will simply avoid those circumstances when they're manipulating the results.

Therefore, the rule just simply state that any team orders that interfere the race results is prohibited. But there are always team orders, surely telling a driver to pit is a team order that may interfere with the race results? Hence that's where my opinion arose for my first paragraph.

And I guess we shall see from the WMC whether such a rule is really unworkable, or what further penalties, if any, would be handed down to Ferrari.

I see that the rule could just mean : Look, we know it's stupid but just don't make the sport look bad cause we then have the power to punish you.

You are then simply forcing the teams to have coded words and acting skills on the radio and on the track. All of this not to "shock" who? The fans?

If a fan is unable to say : Meh. This sucked but this is F1 and I understand why a team would do that then that someone needs to move on and watch something else. Lots of people here are saying we know there are team orders and they will happen but we would prefer to see some masquerade coming along with it. We wanna pretend there aren't any team orders cause it makes the sport look bad. To me it's just silly.

Ferrari are terrible liars. They should hair me, I'm apparently much better at this then them. In fact, I bet most teenagers are better liars then them.

If i was Massa i would be thinking bugger you Fred , if you want it earn it .

There was a lot of talk about ditching him anyways , as we know contracts don't mean a hell of a lot these days.

Although i do think its a bit harder to sack some one if there stading on the top step more than the other guy.

Quote from richo :

If i was Massa i would be thinking bugger you Fred , if you want it earn it .

There was a lot of talk about ditching him anyways , as we know contracts don't mean a hell of a lot these days.

Although i do think its a bit harder to sack some one if there stading on the top step more than the other guy.

Would be exceptionally easy to sack that person if the other ended up losing the WDC by 6 points when you had denied them 7 points by ignoring an instruction from your employer, whether express or implied.

Of course thats true but i don't believe Ferrari are in that position in this case, yes there are lot of points left but i think they have left there run too late.

whatever the legality of the order, massa has to take a lot of the blame for getting ferrari in this mess, given he'd already been having trouble on the harder compound judging his braking points, all he needed to do was to make a show of being a little bit ragged after being told alonso was faster before appearing to brake too late at the hairpin, couple of momentary wheel locks to suggest he was struggling and then running onto the nice wide tarmac run off area and loosing the place to alonso.
everyone would have said he'd tried to speed up after getting that message and no one would have pointed the finger. in making it obvious he was gifting alonso the place, massa was making a point that he could have won to satisfy his own ends, though it has resulted in a certain loss of respect back in brasil, if he'd have appeared to have fought and lost, he would have been judged as being poorer than alonso but also as someone who tried to keep alonso behind.

having said that, ferrari could have avoided this just by deciding what to do before the race, when alonso dropped back the BBC suggested it was to save fuel so it would have been far easier / believable for ferrari to instruct massa to switch to a fuel saving program and then alonso powering past , in fact the fuel program wouldn't even have had to exist, to use mclaren's radio as an example if "lewis go to G8 " had actually meant" lewis slow down let jenson past" no one would have known and would have just assumed button had managed his fuel better

Exact same as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8d-oupdMs

"Alonso's expression captures part of the German Grand Prix story"

Quote from Mustafur :

Exact same as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia8d-oupdMs

why do people keep bringing up previous years, where the rule didn't even exist then?

Quote from bunder9999 :

why do people keep bringing up previous years, where the rule didn't even exist then?

I'm pretty sure they did in 2005

Quote from bunder9999 :

why do people keep bringing up previous years, where the rule didn't even exist then?

Rule applied after Austria '02 this was in 2005.

Also its the same person getting the team orders working for them.

I was reading the F1Technical forum and i fell straight into this.....

Quote :

The only aspect of Schumacher that Alonso can equal is his use of team orders, and even then it's doubtful if he can bring in the WDC.

It would make perfect sense if it 'WASFORTHECHAMPIONSHIP' but we've only just passed halfway point inthe season. Surely all Ferrari should care about is the Constructors, the fact they screwed over their longer serving driver for a newer but arguably a better one just shows to me the fickle nature of Ferrari. The reason Coulthard was the whipping boy for McLaren is because Mika was rewarded for loyalty. Stupid that the same didn't happen here. Massa has given Ferrari alot even though I do not think he is as good as Alonso anyway he sure as hell deserved to win the race as he made a fantastic start and was great at fending Alonso off, after Massa had repassed Alonso they should of told Alonso to stop dicking around and that if he wanted to pass then catch up to him and pass him, like a man.

Does anyone have idea what song they used in the background of BBC's F1 Qualification buildup, when they showed a British GP review ?