| Hands Up Everyone Who Hates Team Orders! |
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| Sunday, 10 July 2011 16:50 |
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At the 2011 British Grand Prix in Silverstone, the Red Bull team was unable to watch their darling, Sebastian Vettel, overtaken by his own teammate, for second place. Team orders – I hate ‘em – were brought into play and we were cheated of a race to second step of the podium when Mark Webber, closing hard in third, was told to ‘maintain the gap’. Vettel had a 77 point lead but that seems not to be enough for Red Bull and those team orders allowed his lead to stretch to 80. I don’t take Christian Horner’s point that he wasn’t prepared to let his drivers race because ‘it would have ended in the wall’. Why would it? Other teams allow their drivers to race. They seem perfectly competent to do so. Christian said that ‘Mark was allowed to race up until that point’, which seems to me to mean: ie the point he was about to overtake Sebastian.Red Bull drivers need a little more race craft training, perhaps? Nah... Just tell Mark Webber to stay behind Sebastian Vettel. Much easier. That said, I acknowledge that Mark Webber was beaten into the first corner by Sebastian Vettel and I’m sure team orders hadn’t been brought into play quite that early, so he was beaten fair and square. Had he made that first corner first maybe he would have been allowed to win. Maybe. Maaaaaybe. Maybe? Even apart from the Red Bull Show, the 2011 British Grand Prix at Silverstone gave us an interesting race with, for the first time this season, a Ferrari winner in Fernando Alonso, who raced from third at the lights to win the race. So, how do I feel about that? I’m not notably an Alonso or a Ferrari fan, but I am a Formula 1 fan and I appreciate a hard- and fairly-fought race. I’m not going to pretend to understand the new twists in the off-throttle blown diffuser row over the weekend, as, unfortunately, I was at a conference and couldn’t keep up with it, even before I had to drive from South Wales to Northamptonshire on Sunday morning. But what’s obvious is that Ferrari came out of it nicely and that the upgrades they brought to this race worked beautifully. Both of their drivers had good races, able to fight for and make up positions. Fernando traded places with a racy Lewis Hamilton until Lewis, having come from tenth, was told to turn down the wick to save fuel, in order to get to the end of the race. From that point, we were cheated of seeing Lewis at his racy best and, Sebastian Vettel secure in second, he became a sitting duck for Mark Webber’s Red Bull on lap 46. What a damned shame. Lewis was just about able to hang onto the resultant fourth place in front of Felipe Massa’s Ferrari, even though it meant contact in the dying moments of the final lap, Felipe Massa taking the final corner A rear jack issue in the pits allowed Fernando Alonso to get the drop on Sebastian Vettel, but Alonso had threatened to win that race from the moment the lights went out. He didn’t put a wheel wrong. McLaren did put a wheel wrong – or a wheel nut, anyway. As Jenson Button left the pit after his third stop on lap 40, his front right wheel gave a horrible wobble and a mechanic cast a rueful look at the wheel nut in his hand, having had to change wheel guns and the lollipop man mistakenly released his driver. Jenson pulled over at the end of the pit lane, his race over. Errors happen in even the best run team but, oh! What a waste of points. As we seem to say every year, Jenson Button didn’t have a great result in the British Grand Prix – but he surely deserved better. Jenson has slipped from joint second with Mark Webber to joint fourth in the championship with his teammate. Paul di Resta’s brilliant qualifying and early part of the race was wasted by an amazing pit stop situation when he was in the box but his wheels were in the garage. His teammate’s tyres were out instead. Confusion, confusion; Paul di Resta lost nine places, a situation from which he was unable to recover, especially after losing a chunk of front wing in contact with Sebastien Buemi’s Torro Rosso. He finished 17th. Sergio Perez had a strong two-stopping race to bring his car home in seventh place. He’s had quite a baptism of fire, in his rookie season, with disqualification, high-impact accident and early retirement. I’m impressed by how he held it together, today. The new, mellower Michael Schumacher readily admitted that his coming together with Kamui Kobayashi was his own fault – I don’t remember hearing him admitting anything like that in his first career. I was sorry to see the incident because, until then, he was cutting through the field, showing some of his old damp-track magic. Like Damon Hill, I’m surprised to find myself occasionally rooting for Michael Schumacher. What else was worthy of comment, in this race? The circuit straddles the Northamptonshire/Buckinghamshire border and, almost as if the weather knows this a late cloudburst having left half the track wet – and half dry. What an excellent way to start a race. I’ve never seen that before and my breath was thoroughly bated as the cars alternately burned their inters on the dry half and skittered and skidded around the wet part. It’s a testament to driver skill, the way that they handled the unusual challenge. It would have been fun to end it the same way. But, I mustn’t be too greedy; the racing was close, exciting, hard-fought, clean and ... and ... delicious. Sorry – I’m a romantic novelist. It comes out, sometimes. By Sue Moorcroft Worth Checking - F1 News - Kate Walkers F1 blog
Comments (1)
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For starters, Mark completely disregarded the team's orders. He didn't "maintain the gap", and I firmly believe that had there been another lap, Mark would have gotten past. It's all good to mention about Sebastian being Red Bull's "darling", but you fail to mention that although team orders were implemented, they weren't adhered to. Mark tried - and failed - to overtake Sebastian.
I don't necessarily like team orders and as a Fernando Alonso fan I cringed when Massa had to let Alonso through last year. But the fact of the matter is, team orders are allowed now. They're legal and I don't see what everyone's complaining about. Let me tell you, I am firmly on Christian Horner's side, every time I see the two Red Bull's about to fight each other I wince, wondering if it'll end the way it did in Turkey last year. How can that not play on Red Bull's mind? Of course ...