Team orders

A team order at the 2002 Austrian GP. Rubens Barrichello's #2 status at Ferrari was made obvious after he moved over to let Michael Schumacher win just a few metres before the finish line.

In motor racing, team orders is the practice of teams issuing instructions to drivers to deviate from the normal practice of racing against each other as they would against other teams' drivers. This can be accomplished either in advance, simply by establishing a pecking order between the drivers within the team, or by instructing a driver to let their teammate overtake or to hold position without the risk of collision.

This is generally done when one driver is behind in a particular race but ahead overall in a championship season. The team will then order their drivers to rearrange themselves on the track so as to give more championship points to a driver who is ahead in the championship. Team orders may also be given when multiple drivers are in a position far ahead of the field, being all but assured of the win. Team orders are issued to prevent drivers from racing each other, so that they conserve fuel, reduce the likelihood of mechanical failure, and avoid a collision. Such orders have been made on countless occasions in the history of motorsport, sometimes causing great acrimony between the team and the disadvantaged driver, and controversy in the media.[1]

Damon Hill: I'm going to put something to you here, and I think you'd better listen to this.
If we race, if we two race, we could end up with nothing, so it's up to Eddie (Jordan).
If we don't race each other, we've got an opportunity to get a first and second, it's your choice.

Hill's radio message to the Jordan pitwall[2]

  1. ^ "Rivalry fuels McRae in his title pursuit". The Independent. 3 November 1995. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReferenceA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).