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 were 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.
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