Well well well (race spoiler)

[miasmum]

I appear to be the only person that actually applauded Seb for 'pure testosterone fuelled racing'. I hate team orders, Nico should have shot passed Lewis too. We are only two races in and already we have 2 I.O.U's waiting.

My friend said 'he obviously forgot who his employers are', well I am sorry but they need him more than he needs them. Plus what happens if any of these pay to race drivers get good enough to have team orders, who employs who then? Sorry but team orders are wrong, wrong, wrong, IMHO anyway

[Ally]

You and Conor would get on very well...that's exactly what he said.

[Workingman]

Team orders have always been part of F1 in a 'Gentleman's agreement' sort of way, and everyone has always suspected that they were used, in one way or another, to influence results. It was Ferrari who blew the hat off with the blatant order for Massa to let Alonso through. Team orders to protect "the team" are one thing, team orders to favour one driver over another are unacceptable.

Today was a bit special, from my POV - for all sorts of reasons. Webber was running away with things when he was put on mediums even though he preferred the harder compound, He did not have to use mediums at all as everyone started on inters so that is a bit of a puzzle. That allowed the pack to close up to him. Hamilton, sensing an opportunity, pushed like hell, too hard in fact, and was soon told to conserve fuel. From that point on the race was set.

In these days of limited engines/gearboxes Red Bull knew they had the race sewn up so BOTH drivers were told to hold station.

Webber did everything right in pacing himself against another team's driver, Hamilton, who, because his half of team and he himself had made cock-ups, was going backwards allowing Rosberg to close up. Webber's deliberate pace against Hamilton also allowed Vettel to close up.

IMO Vettel took personal advantage of "team" orders designed to get maximum Constructor Championship points, and in doing so stuck two fingers up to Horner, Newey and Webber. However, the bigger crime was Brawn's refusal to let Rosberg pass Hamilton. Rosberg was faster then Hamilton because of the mistakes made by Hamilton and his portion of the team, and the decision looks more and more like 'sponsor led' outright favouritism of one driver over another. Very Ferrari like....

[miasmum]

Very Ross Brawn like I think I commented at the time.

Ferrari blew the lid on team orders way before Alonso and Massa Frank. They did it in Austria when Ruebens allowed Schumi through on the finishing line. I could never forgive Ruebens or Eddie Irvine for selling their souls to race at Ferrari. The one person that blew the whistle was Rob Smedley though as you say when he made it obvious in his radio message to Felipe. I love Rob, see my avatar

I know they have always been a part of F1, but sadly money is what drives it all now, not racing nor gentleman's agreements. Hence why we have 5 rookies on the grid and Timo, Kobi and Kovi out of F1.

By the way you know that comment Seb made about 'get him out the way, he is too slow he shouldn't be here" that everyone attributed to Mark? I presumed he was talking about the backmarker he had just come up against

[cromwell]

Seb and Mark have 'history', don't they.
So whenever they end up at the front of the field I guess Christian Horner and the rest start to get a bit twitchy; and rightly so, if yesterday was anything to go on. They were both inches away from taking each other off and scattering bits of Red Bull carbon fibre everywhere.
I do feel sorry for Webber though. He did what he was told, turned the wick down and was then done the dirty on.

Rosberg did the 'right thing' but he had fuel and tyres whereas Lewis didn't. So the right team order would have been to get Lewis out of the way and let Rosberg chase the Red Bulls. Imo it was a silly mistake and a completely avoidable one. Rosberg's OK for now but if it happens again there will be fireworks.

[Workingman]

Brawn's order to Rosberg came through with 14 laps to go and a gap of 4.2 seconds. Rosberg had enough time to catch the tails of the Red Bulls, and if he had we do not know what would have happened. We will now never know.

There are calls today for 'in race' team orders to be banned, again. I cannot see that working unless two-way radio is banned, except for race control and drivers, and standardised pit-board messages. Drivers would still be able to contact their teams, but only to inform them as to when they would be coming in for tyres/repairs.

Other suggestions include such things as cars being fuelled between x and y litres - x being the minimum to finish the race, y being an amount to go full pelt - then letting the driver manage the fuel; and for only one compound of tyre having to be used during a race, but both being available.