Team Orders Rule may be abolished from F1
Bernie Ecclestone the Formula 1 supremo has suggested that the rule regarding the banning of team orders may actually be abolished at the end of the 2010 season when it is reviewed.
The Debate over team orders has taken centre stage even since Ferrari were alleged of illegally telling its drivers to swap positions in Germany.
McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh had earlier said that team orders should be banned. In reply to that Ecclestone said: FIA cannot interfare in what goes on inside a pit during the race, and the teams should be free to run their own strategy in the race.
Ferrari were handed a fine of 100,000 us dollars that is equivalent to 65,100 pounds for sending a coded message to driver Felipe Massa that prompted him to slow down and allowed Fernando Alonso through at Hockenheim .
World motorsport's governing body, in Paris on Wednesday decided not to add any more punishments to Ferrari on that incident .
Ecclestone maintained that the decision was a unanimous one, and it was the right thing to do considering all the things.
No one in F1 believed team orders can actually be taken away from the sport for good. Despite huge criticism of Ferrari after the German grand prix, the fact remains that if a team wants its drivers to end in a particular order. There are enough ways of doing so and nothing that FIA would do can prevent it from happening.
Whitmarsh the team principal of McLaren said that, he is still not clear about the decision made by FIA. He said that there was a clear violation of team orders by Ferrari in Germany and they should have been dealt with seriously. He said this is one thing in the sport that needs to be clarified to everyone and at the moment it is all very “muddy”.
He said that FIA needs to be clear about one thing. He said that either Ferrari is guilty or they are not, he went on to say that if they are guilty then more sanctions should have been placed on them. And if they are really not guilty then the 100,000 dollar fine should also be returned to the team. Whitmarsh said that there should be no gray areas in the sport, and everything has to be in black and white.
The McLaren team boss even though voiced his opinions about the whole situation, but in the end said that regardless of the decision it would not affect him or his team in the rest of the season. He said that all he is interested in is to concentrate on helping his team win the championship. He said that Hamilton is back on top and the team has all the confidence that they would be able to win the constructor’s and driver’s world championship this season.
On Thursday the full verdict of the decision by FIA came out on Ferrari’s hearing. The official statement said that there was no reason to further punish Ferrari because numbers of similar incidents were brought to their attention, and what happened in Germany was not much different to the rest.
The statement added that Ferrari saw the incident as ‘tem tactics’ not team orders, because Massa was never directly told to slow down. In fact he was just made aware of what was going on behind him and he made his own decision.
FIA would review the rule at the end of the year, and as Ecclestone said they may abolish the rule altogether. As FIA believe that they cannot dictate how teams decide to line up their drivers at the end of the race.
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