This blog has now closed. Please visit my new blog, Stepreo.

Archive: team orders

A manipulated sport

25 July 2010 18:17

Categories: *, Formula 1

The way the race and the incidents during it were managed raise doubts that could see F1 lose some credibility again, as it was seen around the world.

–Ferrari statement, 27 June 2010

It’s a shame, not for us because this is racing, but for all the fans who came here to watch a manipulated race.

–Fernando Alonso, 27 June 2010

I don’t consider Formula 1 a sport anymore.

–Fernando Alonso, 10 September 2006

I don’t mind team orders in F1. We know they exist. F1 is a team sport, not just a contest between drivers. It is always important to bear that in mind.

But F1 is also a sport, and those involved should always remember that. Ferrari in particular should be sensitive to this matter, and instantly comparisons were drawn with the scandal of Austria 2002.

This was nothing like as bad as Austria 2002 — when the move was made at the very last corner, with Rubens Barrichello having dominated over his team mate Michael Schumacher all weekend. But the way it was executed still left a sour taste in the mouth.

Today is exactly one year on from Felipe Massa’s horrific accident in Hungary, and he was having a fantastic race in Germany. He found himself under intense pressure from Fernando Alonso for a period. But Alonso failed to capitalise on his chances, and Massa put the hammer down to extend the lead.

The way the team orders were executed after Massa had established his right to win the race was the problem. It insulted our intelligence.

I think most can understand why Alonso would be favoured for the Championship. But, as in Austria 2002, it is too early in the season to be switching drivers round. There is still half of the season to go, and anything can happen. (I am sure that if team orders were not in play in 1999, Eddie Irvine would have won the Drivers’ Championship.)

The way Rob Smedley relayed his instructions to Felipe Massa left us in no doubt as to what was really going on. With that, he has left the door wide open for punishment.

Much of the post-race debate has focussed on the rules regarding team orders. My view on this is clear: there should be no rule on team orders. As David Coulthard consistently pointed out, there is no way to police it. F1 is a team sport, it always has been. There are team orders, there always have been, and there always will be.

The issue is not whether team orders should exist or whether they are legal or not. What is key, though, is that a team should always remember at the end of the day there are viewers out there upon whom F1 depends. As Fota and the like keep on telling us, it’s all about the show!

The problem was that Ferrari executed a team order in the most blatant way possible. Then they tried to deny that there were any team orders. In doing this, they treated the fans with complete contempt. They acted as though we are idiots. This is what has caused the outcry.

Ferrari have been fined $100,000 for their actions today, and the matter has been referred to the World Motor Sport Council. I think a fine alone is a fair enough punishment. The result should stand. It is not the switch that was offensive — it was the way they went about it.

The embarrassment Ferrari have caused themselves should be punishment enough. If they acted in a more noble and sporting way, then people would start taking them more seriously when they start talking about “manipulated” results and how “Formula 1 is not a sport anymore”.

11 comments

Is it time to tear up the FIA rule book?

29 June 2010 23:04

Categories: *, Formula 1

In terms of racing, this year’s race at the Valencia Street Circuit was easily the most successful of the three that have been held so far. Although arguably it was mostly as a result of the shake-up that occurred after Mark Webber’s horrendous accident with Heikki Kovalainen — which we really do not like to see — the fact is that the spectacle was quite good. The start and the first few laps certainly had a lot going on, even before Webber’s crash.

Unfortunately, as often happens in Formula 1, the on-track events have been overshadowed by the inept management of the sport behind the scenes. The stewarding in Valencia was a complete shambles, making a mockery of the sport.

As if the shambolic nature of the stewarding wasn’t enough, the issue has been compounded by Ferrari’s over-the-top reaction. Yes, they have a point. They were hard done by. The FIA systems should have worked better. But, in the words of a former Scottish First Minister, it was more of a cock-up than a conspiracy.

It is unusual for Ferrari to jump up and down and complain about unfair treatment at the hands of the FIA. This is the team that brought us farcical events like Austria 2002 and the “manufactured dead heat” at Indianapolis the same year — yet now they complain about manipulated race results. Never mind, I suppose eight years have passed…

The stewarding problem wasn’t solved after all

Of course, one of the biggest changes in the way the sport is run this year (apart from the change of FIA President) has been the introduction of an ex-driver to advise the stewards. At first it seemed to be working — the stewards were staying quiet, keeping out of matters they didn’t need to be involved in, and generally doing a good job.

Unfortunately, it must just have been a run of good luck, because the past few races have seen a return to the bad old days of shambolic stewarding and controversial conclusions. They still need to be doing a better job.

Getting the involvement of former drivers is a welcome move. But it is only a sticking plaster when the problems with the way the sport is run are so deep. For the time being, the drivers are a piece of decorative tinsel.

It is unfortunate for them that, due to their high profile, the spotlight is unfairly focussed on the drivers. We have often seen, during the race coverage produced by FOM, pictures of the driver in the stewards’ room. In Valencia it was Heinz-Harald Frentzen. But no-one is interested in the other three stewards.

That is a shame because it would be useful to know more. I happened to recognise the name of one of the other stewards at Valencia. Radovan Novak was the controversial person who, in 2008, claimed that McLaren were “responsible” for the Max Mosley sex scandal.

Mr Novak was also reported to have spoken against the prospect of Jean Todt becoming FIA President. On paper, he doesn’t seem like the sort of person who might like to be part of a Jean Todt-led conspiracy in favour of McLaren. Then again, maybe things change easily when the new boss enters his office.

The real problem: The rules are too complex

Mike Gascoyne hit the nail bang on the head:

I think since we started changing the safety car rules, every time you change something you get all these scenarios thrown up, and I think it is just that.

Charlie [Whiting, FIA race director] is trying to do the job as he sees it, calls it as he sees it, and he has as difficult a job as everyone. I think it is just one of those things.

The real issue is that the rules of Formula 1 are too complex. As such, the regulations are filled with loopholes within grey areas. This makes the sport difficult to follow and impossible to fairly officiate.

In recent years, the Safety Car rules have become particularly complex. The FIA has struggled to get this quite right, with the result being ad-hoc changes tacked on to amendments. It reminds me a lot of the constant tinkering the FIA made to the qualifying format in the mid-noughties until it finally settled on the current knockout system.

Already this year, following the farcical finish to the Monaco Grand Prix, a badly written rule has been hastily re-written. It looks like more clarifications will have to come after nine drivers were ended up unintentionally breaking the letter of the law after the Safety Car was deployed towards the end of the lap for many drivers.

On this week’s Radio 5 Live Chequered Flag podcast, Lewis Hamilton described the confusion that the current Safety Car rules create. You can hear it from around 9:40 in:

When the Safety Car comes out, you get all these beeps in your ear, and you get all this different information on your dashboard and lights flashing at you. And you’ve got to have a certain time between the Safety Car 1 line and the Safety Car 2 line. Then between the two Safety Car lines you can go fast. It’s just all so confusing.

In Valencia, the stewards had to make sure they made the right decision. But this meant taking the time to find the evidence and come to a decision in the proper way, which lessened the impact of the penalty. Exactly the same thing happened quite memorably to Nico Rosberg during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

While it’s understandable that the stewards would want to get their decision right, Formula 1 now needs to look urgently at ways of making these decisions more quickly and more efficiently. Formula 1 is a sport with a lot of technology at its finger tips.

There are lots of cameras (the FIA has access to more than we ever see on television), and GPS data, team radio recordings, telemetry and timing systems. Not all of this can be analysed on the spot, but a lot of it can. This ought to be utilised much more.

The words “will be investigated after the race” — which used to be almost unheard of but is now a regular occurrence — should only be used in extreme circumstances. Television viewers and fans at the racetrack need to have confidence that what they have seen play out on the track is the real result.

Most of all, there needs to be a mass simplification of the F1 rules in order to avoid as much this as much as possible. F1 is a complex sport, and it is clearly not easy to regulate. But action needs to be taken, because right now the FIA rule book is more useful as a doorstop than a way to effectively run a motor race.

I also recommend the following posts on this topic:

4 comments

Trouble brewing at both Red Bull and McLaren?

30 May 2010 19:18

Categories: Formula 1

I was absolutely buzzing after the Turkish Grand Prix, a race that had almost everything you could ask for. Even though superficially all the pre-race hype had Red Bull easily in the lead, it turned out that McLaren have turned up the wick and give them a really hard fight.

Red Bull hung on to the lead, as McLaren failed to take advantage during the pitstops. Thereafter, we were treated to an amazingly tense battle at the very front, with all four front-running cars running within a couple of seconds of each other after the pitstops had taken place.

I am struggling to think of any other time when the front-running cars were so close to each other so far into the race. For me, this was racing at its very best. Who needs refuelling?

Red Bull threw away a “sure-fire 1-2″

By lap 40, the McLarens had fallen back a tad, but Sebastian Vettel was still racing closely with Mark Webber. It transpires that Webber was using up more fuel than Vettel, with the German able to save fuel while running in the race leader’s slipstream. Webber therefore had to start conserving fuel sooner than Vettel, whose pace had picked up.

That gave Vettel the golden opportunity to seize the race lead. But disaster struck when the two collided in the most dramatic fashion as Vettel attempted to overtake. The German had to retire, but Webber limped on to the pits and ended up in third place.

It’s one of the most extraordinary things I can remember seeing in F1. This is exactly what I love about the sport. Once you think you’ve seen it all, something even more incredible happens. Red Bull should have had an easy 1-2. But after being pressed by McLaren, Red Bull have ended up, in the words of team boss Christian Horner, handing 43 points on a plate to McLaren.

Red Bull face a driver management nightmare

It is the worst case scenario for Red Bull, not only because a relatively safe 1-2 was lost. The team management now has a complete nightmare job — it must try to keep both drivers happy when inevitably fingers are being pointed and jabbed in opposite directions.

Initial reaction was that the crash was Vettel’s fault. He had half a chance to pass Webber, and bit off more than he could chew. While the speed advantage ensured that Vettel could run alongside Webber, he wasn’t quite fast enough to overtake cleanly. Presumably worried that he would be compromised going into the corner by running so close to the left edge of the track, Vettel turned in towards Webber.

Webber held his line, having given Vettel just enough space and no more. Even though the onboard footage shows Webber trying to steer slightly to the right, Vettel’s steering movement was much more extreme, and he ended up colliding straight into his team mate’s car.

My brother and I strongly disagreed about this during the race. I feel that it was Vettel’s responsibility to ensure that he could overtake in a clean manner. Webber left enough room for Vettel to run alongside him, and it was Vettel who changed direction. This appeared to be the broad consensus viewpoint among most F1 pundits.

It is highly surprising therefore to see the Red Bull management appear to come out in Vettel’s favour, at the risk of upsetting Mark Webber even when most people are taking Webber’s side. If I was Mark Webber, I’d be pretty pissed off by this turn of events.

In a way, you can understand why the team would want to back Sebastian Vettel. He is clearly the team’s best long-term hope, even if in the short- to medium-term Mark Webber is often the faster of the two.

Moreover, Vettel is the only tangible evidence of a vaguely successful driver coming out of the Red Bull young drivers’ programme which the drinks company has poured so much resource into. I am sure Helmut Marko is a proud person, and he would like to think of himself as a mentor to the drivers he that have been through his drivers’ programme over the years. Mark Webber is only at Red Bull to plug the embarrassing vacant gap left over by the complete lack of any other decent drivers to emerge from the programme.

Helmut Marko may deny that the team favours Sebastian Vettel. But the fact he and his colleagues in the Red Bull Racing management have been prepared to publicly blame Mark Webber for the incident — when the vast majority of the F1 community holds the opposite point of view — is indicative.

F1 journalists have certainly been left surprised by Red Bull’s actions after the race. Will Buxton has been particularly vociferous on Twitter, first saying: “Total BS being smelt around the paddock.” He later added:

Helmut Marko – “Vettel was 2 metres ahead”. Riiiiiight. That’s why he and Mark made contact, yeah? Red BS stinking up the place.

Did McLaren also crack?

Meanwhile, are things quietly unravelling at McLaren too? It has not been attracting as much attention, but it’s worth pointing out that the race between Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button was also distinctly odd.

At the very same point of the track a few laps later, Jenson Button got a run on Lewis Hamilton, and the pair had a ding-dong battle for several corners. Luckily, this time round both drivers were more sensible. A good, tough, clean fight was the main result.

Button briefly led, but Hamilton ultimately prevailed. Immediately afterwards, Button suddenly fell right off the pace.

After the race, I thought Lewis Hamilton looked a bit wooden and tense on the podium. Both Martin Brundle and Anthony Davidson picked up on his unusual body language, which seemed quite negative for someone who had just won a race.

Both McLaren drivers seemed confused when they were talking to each other just before going out for the podium ceremony. They were having an interesting conversation until it appeared that they suddenly remembered a camera and microphone were picking up their conversation and broadcasting it on the FOM world feed!

The tension between the driver’s interest and the team’s interest

This pair of situations throws the issue of team orders back into the spotlight. Superficially, team orders are banned — but that doesn’t stop teams giving drivers cryptic messages, or using mechanisms such as instructions to “save fuel” in order to slow down one of the drivers.

Team orders shouldn’t really be banned, as it is understandable that teams will always want to look at the bigger pictures as far as the whole team is concerned. It has always been a part of motor racing, and always will be. But there is always a tension when a driver disagrees with the team’s view.

This tension between the driver’s individual interest and the need for a driver to also play a role as a “team mate” is one of the most fascinating aspects of Formula 1 for me. It doesn’t actually crop up all that often. But when it does, the results can be explosive, as we have seen today.

We have seen that in both front-running teams in Turkey. The situation arose with both teams because — uniquely — all four drivers were running so close with one another. Even fourth placed Button could literally see the leading car at all points during the race. Each one of those four drivers would have felt like they had a major chance of winning today. That’s when egos collide, and team orders begin to unravel.

McLaren’s engineers said over the team radio that “we pushed them and they cracked”, referring to Red Bull. Given Helmut Marko’s comments that Vettel needed to push Webber because he in turn was being pushed by Hamilton appears to vindicate this. But, in their own little way, did McLaren also crack today?

Update: See also the BBC’s Andrew Benson discussing the situations at Red Bull and McLaren.

4 comments

Three car teams — how to break news gently, Ferrari style

17 August 2009 13:07

Categories: Opinion

Last week a lot was made of Luca di Montezemolo’s comments saying that they would push to be allowed to run a third car with Michael Schumacher driving it. I think the idea was taken more seriously than it perhaps should have been.

In my view the whole thing was a bluff, intended to soften the blow of Schumacher’s withdrawal following all the hype. By immediately positing the idea of running Schumacher in a third car in the future, they kept the prospects of a Schumacher return alive in the minds of Schumacher fans and the excitable media, while firmly bolting the door shut in reality.

After all, if Ferrari think Schumacher is good enough to race full time again, they already have two cars they can put him in if they want to. But they think that they can find two better drivers anyway — otherwise why ask for a third car?

Normally, the prospect of three car teams is brought up only as a way of keeping the size of the grid high even when there are fewer teams. Presumably this is the plan B in case the grid ever reaches below that magic number, whether it is 16, 18, 20 or whatever.

But supposedly the prospective 2010 field is larger than the field has been for over a decade. 24 cars are currently entered, with two slots ready to be filled (BMW Sauber’s old slots). And there is supposed to be a “reserve list” of teams ready to take up any vacant spaces that emerge. If ever there was a time when third cars are not required, it’s now.

Moreover, three car teams are best avoided for a host of reasons, as outlined by Keith. Imagine, for instance, if Ferrari had three cars in the early part of this decade. The scope for clunky team orders and foul play would have been huge. I am picturing a three car “manufactured dead heat” right now. Shudder.

But that’s okay because I don’t think Ferrari were being very serious when they brought up the idea. The alternative is that Ferrari suspect that the three or four new teams (and, who knows, maybe a couple of others?) will not be able to turn up for the first round of the next season. That doesn’t say much for the FIA’s 2010 entry process, but I guess you can expect Ferrari to be sceptical of it!

But in the case where there are too few teams, people would be talking about three car teams anyway, because it is the obvious plan B. While a plan B isn’t required, though, I wouldn’t be surprise if the prospect of three car teams is not brought up by Ferrari again. The idea can fade away into the background, people will slowly forget about it, and everyone who got worked up about the Schumacher comeback will have been let down slightly more gently than they might otherwise have been.

6 comments

It's Hamilton's to lose

19 October 2008 14:05

Categories: Report

There is not much to say after the Chinese Grand Prix. The race itself was spectacularly dull and controversy-free. (And I have left it my customary few hours to see if the stewards get involved — they haven’t.) It’s good not to have controversy, but we have become so used to it that it feels a bit empty to come away from a race with absolutely nothing to talk about!

What we can say though is that we are heading towards the final race of the season with Lewis Hamilton having slightly extended his lead. Ominously, that is exactly the same lead he had going into the final race last year — 7 points. On paper, it should be easy enough for him to simply finish 4th or above so that he can wrap up the title. But what if he gets the jitters?

Today we saw the calmer, more conservative Hamilton. It’s true that he didn’t ever have to go on the attack. Unlike in Fuji, he got a fine start. Besides, his advantage over Ferrari at Shanghai has been clear to see all weekend. So there was no reason for Hamilton to risk it and in the end he cruised to an easy victory with a 15 second margin.

That advantage might not exist in Brazil. Ferrari have won the previous two races at Interlagos, and Felipe Massa in particular tends to perform well on his home patch. What Hamilton needs to do is make sure he doesn’t get spooked if Ferrari perform well like they did last year.

There is a slight debate surrounding Ferrari’s team orders. Kimi Räikkönen had the advantage over Massa for the whole race, but mysteriously slowed down for a few laps towards the end of the race to let Massa pass before returning to his normal pace. The Finn knowingly chuckled when asked about it during the press conference.

The hysteria surrounding team orders is nonsensical. All teams use team orders of some sort, it is a normal part of motor racing and has been for decades. The only reason team orders got a bad name was because of the botched switchover at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, which was quite rightly criticised. But that incident was so offensive because it took the supporters for mugs. Supporters know what was going on today though, and it was reasonable for Ferrari to ask Räikkönen to move over, allowing Massa to score two extra points which could come in very handy.

Meanwhile, outside bet Robert Kubica has dropped out of the championship hunt. I feel that he has been the best driver this season and he certainly deserves to win the title one day. I do hope he finds himself in a good enough car in the near future. In the meantime, it was always slightly surreal that Kubica was so close to the championship leaders for so long, and it must be admitted that he has done so mainly by hoovering up the points fumbled by McLaren and Ferrari rather than outright pace.

Kubica’s weekend got off to a bad start when he only managed to qualify 12th. As always, Kubica fought a strong race, but could only manage 6th just behind his team mate Nick Heidfeld. One day.

Unfortunately, there are almost no other talking points following today’s race. It wasn’t really worth the 7am start. That’s tilkedromes for ya.

3 comments

doctorvee