Team orders should be permitted in F1

Posted on 27/07/2010

If you’ve read all the fall-out from the German Grand Prix, you may have been left scratching your head somewhat. Fernando Alonso, a man once embroiled in some serious politically incorrect allegations, is making more headlines than ever for winning a race thanks to the work of his team-mate. Scandalous! Felipe Massa stepped aside so that Alonso, the man with the better chance of winning the world title, could skip through for victory, and the Daily Telegraph’s David Coulthard has no problem with it...

Formula One is a team sport. There, I said it. It is not a popular view but it is the truth. And because it is a team sport, the frankly ludicrous ban on team orders that everyone is getting so worked up about should be scrapped.

Now just hear me out. I know that what we saw at Hockenheim on Sunday, when Felipe Massa was ordered aside for Fernando Alonso, was unpalatable to many fans but for goodness sake, wake up and smell the coffee. Team orders happen in F1. They always have and they always will. Just because Ferrari was ham-fisted in breaking the rules, does it make their transgression any worse? I cannot believe some of the hypocrisy we’ve heard in the past couple of days.

The only way to stop team orders would be to race with one car. As long as there are two (and some teams want three — how difficult would it be then to control team orders?) the rule is unenforceable.

Team principals should be allowed to do the best they can for their team, for their employees, for their owners. That is what they always used to do. At some point during the past 60 years we seem to have lost sight of that fact.

The public furore is based on a fundamental misunderstanding, which is that Formula One is about the individual. When I raced I lost sight of that as much as anyone else. Like every driver, I was racing for myself as well as the team. Unfortunately I was asked to make way for Mika Hakkinen at Jerez in 1997 and Melbourne a year later. Both times I acquiesced; both times reluctantly.

As I have written in previous columns, I have often wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t been so compliant. Perhaps I would have won more respect? Perhaps I would have been world champion? Perhaps I would have been fired? These are the kind of decisions a driver must weigh up.

No doubt Massa is grappling with such questions. The most damaging aspect of Sunday’s race is what it could do to his reputation. People will see him now as a ‘yes man’ who bends to the will of the company. And maybe they are right. Team player or stooge? The line is thin.

But it doesn’t change the underlying truth. My old team boss, Frank Williams, used to make decisions that would anger us drivers but when we complained about them he would say it was not about us, it was about the 700 employees in the team. We were just two paid drivers. He was right.

Ah, people will say, if it is a team sport then why is the drivers’ title the holy grail? You didn’t see Ferrari celebrate the constructors’ crown in 2008 after Lewis Hamilton pipped Massa to the drivers’ title. That’s true. Sponsors need stars so teams will try to win that crown above all. That is the ultimate goal. It is tough luck for one of the two drivers but only one of them can win the thing.

Like the Tour de France, which is all about getting the team leader across the line first. Like a football team, who can sometimes sacrifice a player to man-mark a member of the opposition in order to give his striker room to score. Like any team sport, in fact, the manager must be free to decide how best to manage his team. The players involved are free to obey or disobey — often the best sportsmen are not team players — but they do so at their own risk.

That is all part of the delicate and unique team-driver relationship. The only possible drawback I can see to repealing the team orders rule is the encouragement it might give to the illegal gambling industry. But it remains the only way of stopping charades such as the one we saw on Sunday.

Senna v Prost, take two

Posted on 19/04/2010

Jenson Button's second victory of the season at the Chinese Grand Prix was a triumph of composure over the spirited display of team-mate Lewis Hamilton. In the first British one-two since David Coulthard and Eddie Irvine at the Austrian Grand Prix 11 years ago, Jonathan McEvoy in The Daily Mail compares the ying and the yang of the McLaren pairing to that of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna.

There was one British driver who illuminated a bewitching Chinese Grand Prix with his now-you-see-me-now-you don’t rampage. And then there was the Briton who won it by stealth.

This was a race of extremes: Lewis Hamilton, all blood and guts, in second place. Jenson Button, clean and composed, victorious for the second time this season to go top of the drivers’ standings. It was Hamilton’s Senna against Button’s Prost; Botham versus Boycott; Rooney versus Lampard.

But as well as the two McLaren world champions bringing their own contradictory fascination, we were treated to rain, spins, a jump-start, safety cars, reprimands and a lamentably age-ravaged performance from the great — and that word is not misplaced — the great Michael Schumacher.

Button evidently felt surefooted enough shod as he was, and sensed the rain would not come down hard. It did not, at least for a while. In fact, Hamilton was in again three laps later to revert to slicks. His ins-and outs relegated him from the top 10 while Button was ensconced in second spot behind Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes. ‘It was tricky out there but we called it right,’ said Button.

‘It’s not just about being quick; it’s about reading the conditions.’ Was that a dig at Lewis, by any chance?

Now to the runner-up. He zoomed past his rivals and then, when various pit stops caused him to fall back again, did it all over again. It prompted the question: is there a more exhilarating competitor in all sport than Hamilton on the charge? He had started sixth, one place behind Button.

But before the thrills came a spill. Well, nearly. He veered perilously close to sliding off entering the pits on his first of four stops — compared to Button’s two — at the gravel trap which wrecked his title hopes in 2007. Next came his wheel-to-wheel entry to the pits with Sebastian Vettel, who started on pole but suffered a terrible start. They sparred again on the way out.

Hamilton, who had driven with his heart, had lost out to Button, driving with his head. It was the same in Melbourne last month, when Button’s immaculate tyre choice won out over his confrere’s blasting approach.

Hamilton, 11 points off the summit, was weak-voiced with disappointment afterwards. Asked if it was a fantastic race, he said: ‘Maybe for you it was. I just felt that every time I made a place, I lost it. It was very, very hard. But to climb my way to second was great. Jenson made the right choice on his tyres; I didn’t.’

Continue reading "Senna v Prost, take two"

Hamilton needs a father figure

Posted on 30/03/2010

The wheels are falling off the Lewis Hamilton bandwagon. Not literally, but he has been called a d******d for his antics behind a road car which caught the eye of police, his tirade at his team which was aired during the Australian Grand Prix – an Australian Grand Prix in which he came home in sixth after being shunted off the track by Mark Webber. David Coulthard, writing in the Telegraph, is convinced the young Brit could benefit from having his father by his side.

I have seen Lewis grow up and the young man I know is not only a brilliant driver but a streetwise, well-rounded character.

His startled, anxious response to both the lying scandal he was caught up in last year — which was in no way his fault — and now this have been out of all proportion.

Where is the reassuring arm around his shoulder? Where is the sound advice coming from? Where is his father?

Lewis’s decision to dispense with Anthony’s services as his manager last month was hailed as a coming-of-age move on his part. But the folly of not appointing a replacement showed over the weekend. Having no manager is like a top tennis player having no coach. It’s fine when you are playing well but as soon as you are struggling people will point to it as a weakness.

I don’t know if they have had a bust-up but it does strike me as odd that apparently they did not speak to one another in the aftermath of Friday’s incident. Either way, Lewis needs to appoint a replacement soon so he can concentrate on his day job.

Labouring the point

In recent times, politicians have been quick to line themselves up alongside sports stars – seemingly in a bid to boost their profile. Nothing wrong with that, but Matt Dickinson in the Times has taken aim at the Labour government for wading in to the football ownership debate. He’s not hacked off with them wading in, just that it has taken them so long to do it.

Foiled in their attempt to get Gordon Brown on Match of the Day 2 to parade his “regular bloke” credentials — the BBC declined to give the Prime Minister the platform so close to a General Election — Labour’s sports advisers have evidently been racking their brains for another way to win the football vote. Happily for them, they didn’t have to think very hard.

Gazing out of their Whitehall windows, they will have seen a bandwagon of fan disquiet about the game’s governance. They will have noticed that there cannot be a more populist cause in Portsmouth, Liverpool and Manchester than intervention into club ownership; and those cities are merely the obvious hot spots.

So all aboard! Government sources have floated the idea that, should Labour be voted back into office, they would wade in on behalf of the honest supporter to shake up the FA and Premier League, and to fight greedy, bloodsucking owners.

Football’s governing bodies would be given deadlines to reform. The buying and selling of clubs would be regulated, with fans’ groups guaranteed first option.

Most radically, there is talk of forcing clubs to hand over a 25 per cent stake to supporters’ groups. New Labour meets old socialism, and never mind that the Glazers, and their lawyers, might not want to give up a quarter of their billion-pound business without a scrap.

Now you might think these proposals, however far-fetched, worthy of further investigation. You might even believe they have merit. Me, mostly I found myself thinking aren’t they laughably late?

Labour has been in office for 13 years and it expects us to set aside cynicism when it floats these ideas now?