Formula 1: Should team orders be banned?

Team orders are completely legal in Formula 1, but that doesn’t mean they go over well with fans and drivers. Should they be banned?

In this past Sunday’s Russian Grand Prix, the 16th race of the 21-race 2018 Formula 1 season, even non-Lewis Hamilton fan’s nightmare came true when Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport executed team orders to allow the four-time Formula 1 champion to pass teammate Valtteri Bottas before going on to win the race.

As a result, Hamilton’s lead over championship rival Sebastian Vettel, also a four-time champion, of Scuderia Ferrari in the driver standings is 50 points as opposed to 43 points, which it would have been had Bottas, who finished the race in second place, won the race with Hamilton finishing in second. Vettel finished in third.

While Hamilton is pretty much a lock to win this year’s championship and would be a lock to win it regardless of whether or not he was handed his victory in the Russian Grand Prix as a result of team orders, Mercedes’ use of team orders to take a win away from Bottas and give it to Hamilton has reignited the debate regarding whether or not team orders belong in the sport.

In short, yes, they do. While anyone who isn’t a fan of the driver who team orders benefit in any particular instance, there is no reason for them to be banned from Formula 1.

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Following the 2002 Formula 1 season, team orders that could influence the outcome of a race were banned. However, following the 2010 season, the season during which Felipe Massa was told that teammate Fernando Alonso was faster than he was in the German Grand Prix —  in other words, “let Alonso pass you” — , the team order rule was scrapped.

This instance is a huge reason why they should not be reinstated. Regardless of whether or not a team order ban is in place, teams are still going to find creative ways, some more creative than others, to ensure that whichever one of their two drivers they want to be in front of the other at the end of the race is in front of the race. It’s inevitable, so why try to stop it?

Another reason that they should not be reinstated is the fact that all teams have two drivers, including the top two teams that have gone at it for the championship in each of the last two seasons. What one team can do, so can another.

In fact, Hamilton has earned all eight of Mercedes’ victories this season while Vettel has earned all five of Ferrari’s victories in 2018. Are Bottas and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen really that much worse than their teammates that neither one has won any of the seasons’ first 16 races driving for the sport’s two top-tier teams?

Of course not. Mercedes clearly prioritize Hamilton over Bottas and Ferrari clearly prioritize Vettel over Raikkonen, and this has been evident on a fairly regular basis in recent seasons given the fact that these two teams are not afraid to use their number two drivers to the advantages of their number one drivers.

For this reason, it is hard to imagine a single team order drastically changing the outcome of a championship. The seven extra points that Hamilton gained in the Russian Grand Prix by winning as opposed to finishing in second place will certainly not be the reason why he wins the championship over Vettel this season, and this is literally the situation that has reignited this whole discussion.

Team orders will not be banned, nor should they be. I know they can be frustrating. I, too, get frustrated whenever they are used no matter which teams use them. But this is just the way it is.

Do you believe that team orders that influence the outcome of a race and/or a championship should be banned from Formula 1? If so, why, and if not, why not?