Quote Originally Posted by Valve Bounce
Well, he wouldn't have got the big salary rise and contract renewal for a start. He might even have gotten himself fired.
In which case he would have gotten a win and lost a job he said he didn't like.

In cases where team orders don't seem to make much difference in the grand scheme of things, maybe the reasons lay elsewhere.

Maybe, just maybe various team members, family members of team members, friends of team members, and managers of team members had large wagers down with various sport books about who was going to win. By the time of the Michael-Rubens fiasco I would guess that on a bet on Michael to win, the bettor would have to wager many, many dollars to win one dollar. An unecessary Schumacher loss could have been financially devastating to some.