Please forgive me if this has been asked and answered before. I did do a search but found only the one thread titled 'Hint-Hint' that came up fruitless in answering my question.
I am a member of a car club pertaining to the car i drive (a VX220) and have asked the following question there but to no avail. Then it dawned on me, go straight to the top and ask you guys (seeing as how here is all about F1) if anyone can/will help, then i'm banking that you can here.
My question is:
What is the difference between 'Team Orders' (banned) and 'Team Tactics' (ok'd) ??
Thank-You for reading this newbies question and i await in anticipaton to hearing back from you.
All the very best...
..iceman (julian)
Team orders are considered to be when a team trys to deliberately manipulate the outcome of a race to favor one of their drivers over the other. The notorius case was several years ago when Ferrari driver Barichello who had dominated the entire weekend was cruising to a win when he got 'team orders' to move aside for one Michael Shumacher who was further ahead in driver points. This was put in fine focus when Rubens waited until the last lap/corner to 'slow down' for Micheal to take the win. The audience erupted in boos and Micheal even handed the winners trophy to Rubens on the podium. Typical of Ferrari they did not care what others thought. The FIA then decided that this was not in the best interests of the sport and created a rule. It should be mentioned that before this incident team orders were a normal aspect of team management. That is, it was no big deal for a team to order its drivers to do things that ensured the one more likely to win the championship would get as many points as possible by having the #2 driver move over for the #1. Ferrari just thumbed its nose at the fans by doing something that was for all to see not right, not fair and not even necessary. It was then that I decided Ferrari was a joke and not worthy of my respect.
Team Tactics on the other hand are what McClaren did at Monaco by telling their drivers to stay on station and not risk taking each other out of the race. This was done after the first pit stop. No big deal and the decision was done strategically to ensure maximum points to the team without regard for who was in front. Alonso won but if Hamilton was leading it would have been the same.
One was bullpoo and brought the sport into disrepute while the other was just smart race strategy at a track that has unique problems for passing.
Others may have different view,...
'For many people life is something that flits by while you are busy doing something else.' Alan Henry 06/07 F1-racing - The Rumble Script.
Or as I like to say 'life eats up a lot of bandwidth!'
