Originally Posted by dj_bytedisaster
All valid points, but at least to the general public it looked as if Nico was significantly faster and didn't need to save on fuel the way Lewis did. Had they let him pass they would still have gotten exactly the same amount of points. If one driver has to turn down his engine because he's marginal on fuel and the other one still has enough juice to go flat out, keeping the latter behind is a completely arbitrary decision with no justification whatsoever.
I've never been a friend of team orders. I didn't like how Eddie Irvine and Rubens Barrichello always keeled over when told to do so, because that takes away from Michael's achievents. One has to put up with it in the hot championship fight in the late season, but this early in the game I think it achieves nothing but putting F1 to shame. How many of us would put up with a football game, where the coach decides, who is allowed to score a goal and who isn't?