The argument about team orders in Formula One has once again been sparked following the battle between the Force India drivers in Canada. This makes team orders a hot topic once again and leaves many asking whether or not teams should use team orders. Would team orders have been a good idea in this situation?
No matter how much fans complain about being robbed a good battles or about seeing their favorite driver ordered to swap positions with their teammate, it’s quite hard to argue that team orders are not a valid strategy at a Grand Prix. There are perfectly good situations where team orders can benefit drivers and teams.
For example, take Kimi Räikkönen’s position swap with Sebastian Vettel in Monaco (a topic which I never really covered on the Racing Clothesline). There are people who argue that it wasn’t a position swap, but I think it’s pretty clear that it was. However, I’m not saying that it was a bad call by Ferrari. In fact, I’m saying that it’s quite a good decision from Ferrari that allowed them to maximize their World Drivers’ Championship lead over Lewis Hamilton.
That was a good example of when team orders are perfectly fine and work quite well. The situation today with Force India is a perfect example of when you shouldn’t use team orders and I’m extremely happy that the team didn’t use such orders.
Although the team lost out in the end because they were passed by Vettel, I don’t think that swapping Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon would have helped the team in any way and I think it could have hurt the team more.
It’s not as though Pérez was lapping significantly slower than Ocon and it’s not even as though Pérez was far behind Daniel Ricciardo (the car they were fighting for a podium position). Pérez was competitive and had every chance to overtake the Red Bull as Ocon would have had if the two swapped positions.
As a side note to this topic, I’d also like to point out that Pérez was never given orders to swap positions with his teammate, as the team reported. Robert Fernley, the deputy team principal of Force India, confirmed this by saying: “After the pit stops, Esteban was right behind Sergio and had a pace advantage thanks to his fresher tyres. We advised both drivers of the situation and considered switching them around, but ultimately we chose to let them race. They were tough with each other on the track, but it was a fair fight.”
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