Accepting the unacceptable

Posted on 10/12/2010

Nothing technically illegal but ... the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello cross the line together at the 2002 USA Grand Prix © Getty Images

The FIA’s decision to end its own pathetically inept attempts to control the issuing of team orders should not been seen as a surrender to Ferrari, as some have claimed, as much an acceptance it was trying to police the unpoliceable.

For more than five decades team orders were an accepted part of the sport and while they provoked a few moans, nobody got too upset. But it was the complete dominance of Ferrari and Michael Schumacher which had those running the sport desperately looking for ways to curb them. In Austria in 2002 Rubens Barrichello was ordered to allow Schumacher past to take the win – so dominant was Schumacher anyway that it was hardly needed but it angered sponsors and spectators, and so the FIA who saw the last chance of something resembling a competitive drivers’ championship disappear.

So team orders were banned as a knee-jerk reaction, only it soon became clear that enforcing the rule was impossible. So a murky world of coded messages and limp-wristed enforcement followed.

In Germany this year Felipe Massa was ordered to allow team-mate Fernando Alonso past for the win, wrecking the clearly disheartened Massa’s season and turning opinion against Ferrari and Alonso. The FIA was almost powerless to act and fined Ferrari the derisory sum of $100,000.

By scrapping the rule at least the FIA has admitted what everyone else knew for years. Team orders have always happened and will continue to do so. Anyone who pretended otherwise was a blinkered fool.

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Posted by John on 10/12/2010

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