Mercedes drivers told to obey team orders in future

[Hawkmoon]

the success came from schumacher, a superior car ( borderline illegal at times) and a lot of assistance by the FIA.

It goes beyond the Schumacher era. Villeneuve was told to hold station behind Scheckter at Monza in '79 because Scheckter was the team's number one. Collins gave up his car so Fangio could win the title in '56 because the Argentinian was number 1. Driver hierarchies are a part of F1's DNA and Ferrari have embraced that method more than most teams.

It really didn't matter who was in that other car. Ferrari were going to win the WDC and WCC anyway. the team orders were put in place to ensure MSC dominance and success and had little to do with the overall team success. As left up to their own, Barrichello would have had more wins and a much tighter challenge to MSC. Especially from 2002-2004, what was the point of team orders? that car was beyond dominant. Therefore I say team orders rarely work or are effective and if you look at how they are employed that strategy, then it was never about benefitting the team ,but more about benefitting the one driver. Even if issuing them were patently ridiculous and meaningless.

Ferrari felt the best way to win was to backup Schumacher with a 'lesser' driver. The results speak for themselves.

And with ferrari it stretched far beyond race strategy, it was also the effort devoted to each car, what parts were being given and pretty much having the #2 as a test rabbit, often compromising their own weekend and race just so it could benefit MSC. that level of slant will thankfully never happen again. And as much as i respect the quality of Alonso's driving and skill, he is probably the only guy left on the grid who would wish for that kind of scenario and setup within the team. He certainly did in 2007 and was provided that 2009-2010, and had and implicit understanding of that during his alonso/massa pairing When massa was clearly a #2 and at times got some mysterious pit calls etc, that only served to help alonso and not maximizing the team points. Now vettel enjoyed those kind of benefits too for a number of years, but in a more subtle way.

Late in a season with no chance of success and a championship on the line for your teammate, then I can certainly see teams employing a few strategic calls, etc, which a teammate most often is more than happy to oblige. But i remember MSC not helping out irvine whatsoever, because he wanted to be the first to win the wDC with ferrari in that era, even if it meant compromising the team and teammate.

Schumacher came back from injury in Malaysia in '99 and put it on pole by almost a second. He then let Irvine past in the early laps and proceeded to make life hell for Coulthard who was third. After the pit stops Schumacher was again ahead of Irvine and again let him past. Irvine won. How is that not helping Irvine whatsoever?

I for one hate team orders, and they should not be part of the sport. like i said if asked to help a teammate out here and there, then ok, but it should not be an order. And it is funny how only F1 teams think that it is a teamsport, when really it is an individual sport with 2 cars for each participating team. I partly blame it on the entire payout structure of F! which should be geared towards driver performance than team performance. By that same matrix, the top teams will still get most of the prize money and any kind of benefit from finishing higher than rivals, but the actually tethering of the cash windfall to the overall team performance is rather foolish. Establish a proper revenue sharing system and focus more on the drivers championship. That is what most people watch it for.

I have no problems with team orders and I think F1 is a team sport. Golf is an individual sport. F1 takes hundreds of people behind the scenes and dozens on race day to achieve success. It's the very definition of a team sport.