Are the team orders used in DTM’s controversial finale legal in Formula 1?

2021 F1 season

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The controversial race which decided the destiny of the German’s premier touring car championship last week prompted fierce criticism, not least from the series’ chief, multiple grand prix winner Gerhard Berger.

“Of course this issue is not new in sport,” DTM boss Berger acknowledged in an interview with German newspaper Bild. “In Formula 1 in particular, there are many examples that are unacceptable from a sporting point of view, both from the fans’ and the other teams’ point of view.”

He recalled “the wave of outrage Ferrari was confronted with from the fans when Rubens Barrichello gave up victory for Michael Schumacher” at Austria’s A1-Ring in 2002.

This was by no means the first time an F1 driver had handed victory to his team mate, even within sight of the line. Berger himself received such a gift from Ayrton Senna as the latter clinched the 1991 world championship at Suzuka 30 years ago this week.

Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari, A1-Ring, 2002
Ferrari caused uproar with team orders in 2002
But following the furious reception to the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix episode the FIA president at the time, Max Mosley, outlawed such team orders. They were legalised again after 2010, by which time Mosley had been replaced by Jean Todt, who as Ferrari team principal directed the position swap between Schumacher and Barrichello.

Such orders remain legal, though contentious, and not always obeyed, as was the case at Alfa Romeo last weekend. But collusion between multiple teams is a different and arguably more serious matter. Hence Berger’s obviously displeasure when it happened at the Norising last week.

Three drivers arrived at the final race with chance of taking the championship. Two tangled at the first corner: Points leader (and Red Bull-backed Formula 2 driver) Liam Lawson barged aside by Kelvin van der Linde. Lawson limped on, out of the points, but still on course to take the title providing the third contender, Maximilian Goetz, didn’t win the race.

After the drivers had completed their final pit stops Goetz lay third, over 13 seconds behind leader Lucas Auer, with Philip Ellis between them. Goetz’s chances of overcoming such a gap with only a few minutes of racing left would have been virtually nil had the Winward team drivers ahead of him not slowed down significantly.

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Auer and Ellis increased their lap times by multiple seconds around the short, sub-49-second circuit. Having allowed Goetz to close in the pair then let him through to take the victory and the championship.

Winward drivers made way for their HRT rivals at Norising
Berger described this “cross-team arrangement” between Winward and Goetz’s HRT squad – both of which run Mercedes AMG GT3 Evos – as “completely different” to the more conventional form of team orders involving a single team. “I cannot accept it either sportingly or personally on our platform,” he fumed.

Six races are left to run in the closest Formula 1 championship fight between drivers of two rival teams for almost a decade. Could their teams resort to similar orders, and would it be legal for them to do so?

Arguably the possibility exists. Mercedes have connections to three customer teams while Red Bull has a sister outfit, AlphaTauri.

Following the last race AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda admitted he wants Max Verstappen to win the title for the Honda-powered team. Tsunoda admitted he held Verstappen’s title rival Lewis Hamilton back as long as he could – so much so he over-stressed his tyres.

In contrast, Hamilton then passed two Mercedes customer cars with much less difficulty. The first was Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin. “He was a lot quicker and I didn’t want to waste my time defending him,” Stroll said when asked by RaceFans whether he had arranged to let the Mercedes by. “He was going to finish in front of me at the end of the race anyway.”

Next came the McLaren of Lando Norris, who the day before said he had divided loyalties between the two contenders. “Obviously I support Lewis as a Brit,” said Norris, “but I’m also good mates with Max.”

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It also bears pointing out that Hamilton then passed the other AlphaTauri of Pierre Gasly much more easily than he got past Tsunoda.

Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri, Istanbul Park, 2021
Report: Tsunoda says he “wants Max to win” and tried to keep Hamilton behind for longer
If an F1 team was prepared to make a more obvious attempt to swing the outcome of a race for a championship rival, as happened in the DTM, would that be a violation of the rules? The case of McLaren and Williams in the 1997 European Grand Prix is well-remembered. The FIA investigated but cleared the two teams over suspicions they’d colluded to help McLaren win the race while their drivers steered clear of Williams’ Jacques Villeneuve as he clinched the championship.

Appendix M to the International Sporting Code governs “manipulation of competitions” which it describes as “an arrangement, act or intentional omission aimed at improperly altering the result or running of a competition in order to remove all or part of the unpredictable nature of said competition, aiming to obtain an undue advantage for oneself or others.”

However it remains to be seen whether these seldom-used areas of the regulations would or could be used to prevent collusion in F1. Prior to the Turkish Grand Prix, RaceFans asked FIA F1 race director Michael Masi whether such tactics were allowed.

“I’d have to have a look at it on a case-by-case basis as it arises,” he said. “I wouldn’t like to pre-empt different things of what may or may not happen through the field.”

Flashback: 1997 European Grand Prix – Villeneuve takes title as Schumacher’s attack gets him thrown out
While Masi does not feel the 1997 case necessarily provides a precedent, scope does exist in the regulations for such incidents to be examined.

“If you’ve seen the size of the ISC and the various regulations,” he added, “there’s various regulations that could be used if something untoward was happening and [we] could deal with that in the appropriate manner through the appropriate forums, if it’s necessary.”

As the example of the DTM showed, any team resorting to such tactics is likely to stoke controversy. But that alone won’t be enough to put them off it if a championship is at stake.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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49 comments on “Are the team orders used in DTM’s controversial finale legal in Formula 1?”

  1. There is also the catch-all provision in the International Sporting Code about “bringing the sport into disrepute,” which has been wielded in F1 on a number of occasions in recent memory (Spygate, Liegate, Crashgate and of course Ferrari’s use of team orders at Hockenheim in 2010).

    Collusion among supposedly independent teams to manipulate the result of a championship would certainly appear to bring the sport into disrepute, although I guess it would depend on the precise circumstances.

    1. @red-andy It’s sad to read a lot of the comments about fans liking it and thinking Collusion is fine.

      The DTM finals was a total fiasco and we did not see the best driver & team win the series due to outside manufacturer interference and extreme recklessness but thats OK? What is true competition suppose to be? Where’s the honor?

      Tsunoda decided own his own (or not?) to purposely interfere and slow down another driver on another team for the pure benefit to help another team that he’s not on and at the cost of his own results and team points (0). He essentially took one for another team (not his) while he was in a points position, that would fall under collusion, especially if he was advised about it prior to the race? The guy was even giddy about it afterwards.

      I think what is sad is fans not understanding what sportsmanship is and what true competition is without outside interference effecting the results of the competition. When that happens can we honestly say the best man & team won?

      These incidents can create a very slippery slop that could get very ugly. The tit for tat can bite back, be careful what you wish for. If this type of behavior (Tsunoda) is deemed acceptable in F1, then would it be ok for all four teams Mercedes PU to blatantly do the same back? Especially in the beginning of next season. Currently there’s only two Honda/RB teams: Alpha Tauri and Red Bull, why not start blocking alpha Tauri preventing them from getting any more points hurting any chances in advancing passed Alpine in the championships and letting AM catch up and why not hurt Verstappen, block him hard whenever they can totally removing his chances of beating Hamilton? Would that be fair? Would Verstappen and Honda fans then say cool, that’s just racing? I seriously don’t think so, fans would be screaming bloody murder especially if it was as blatant as what Tsunoda did and Verstappen lost the championship because of it. Based on many comments here and elsewhere by RB fans, that should be totally ok? I think its not.

      Personally I don’t think it’s ok for Verstappen being blocked by another team that doesn’t have Bottas or Hamilton on their roster effecting the championships nor should it be ok for what Tsunoda did to Hamilton, it creates a new lower standard in racing that none of the teams or drivers should participate in.

      How about instead keeping it classy?

      1. Tsunoda kept another racer behind him for as many laps as possible. Is this not literally what the sport is about?

      2. @redpill I don’t think Tsunoda did anything wrong other than race LH hard to try to keep his position, and if that meant keeping LH behind a little longer, so be it. Tsunoda should be racing everyone as hard and fair as he can for position. That’s his job. I think earlier this season he also took glee racing LH. That he took glee that it was LH and that he is for Max is neither here nor there. There are rules in place already for somebody ‘blocking’ someone else, especially ‘hard.’ Tsunoda was not blocking. What should they (F1) have done with Tsunoda? Blue flagged him? He was racing for position. Fairly. If he wasn’t, he would have been penalized. Didn’t FA lose a WDC at Ferrari while he languished behind a car for lap after lap, unable to pass? Wasn’t that just thought of as fair game? Too bad so sad for FA?

        Oh I do appreciate the remark about keeping it classy, but for all the ‘harm’ Tsunoda did, racing, which is his job, was there any more integrity to the next two drivers LH came upon just letting him go, in the pinnacle of what is supposed to be racing? Why should LH just be handed positions, nullifying the penalty he was correctly given by the components usage rule? Do we need to talk about the imbalance in terms of Mercedes customers that are out there that could make life easier for LH vs. just the only two other Honda powered cars out there ‘for Max’? No, I think overwhelmingly the grid is pretty classy about not interfering incorrectly with the front runners. Racing hard for position is fine when it is fair racing, and not blocking or moving over into, etc.

        1. @Robbie I agree. Absolutely nothing wrong with defending your position against another driver. It’s not like Tsunoda was aware that it would put too much damage on his tyres and his end result would suffer. Even if he had known at the time, how would you police that? Slower drivers must let faster ones past easily if the stewards deem it beneficial for their own race?

          If anything the more suspicious ones would be where drivers are letting their ‘associated’ championship rivals through too easily, like Stroll did with Hamilton in Turkey. But again, how would you police it? Should they investigate Bottas for letting Max past too easily in Sochi? He certainly didn’t attempt to defend that one.

          It’s probably impossible for the rule book to accurately cover every situation that might come up, so I think it has to be taken on a case by case basis. The DTM example where two rivals who could have finished first and second backed off by multiple seconds per lap to let their ‘teammate’ through to win are things that they could investigate in F1. But even then, the teams might be able to fake some kind of issue. Let’s hope none of these situations occur as the championship comes to its conclusion.

  2. If I wrote the rules there would be three criteria for evaluating whether a race was manipulated:
    1. was the decision (whether by team or driver) made primarily for the competitive interest of a driver on a different team?
    2. was the move clearly, at the time, to the sure detriment of the driver in question’s competitive interest and the benefit of another?
    3. did it demonstrate a willful disregard for safety?
    Any incident would have to meet at least two to be investigated as potentially manipulating the outcome. Examples from this year:
    Tsunoda in turkey meets one, but not two (keeping another car behind, even if bad for tire life, will never clearly be against a driver’s competitive interest) and certainly didn’t show a disregard for driver safety
    Bottas in Hungary meets two, but not one (there was no conscious decision involved) or three (every accident is dangerous but this was obviously not willful).
    Mazepin’s repeated attempts to shove Mick into the pitwall show a willful disregard for safety, but because there’s no element of two or three it can’t be called race-fixing, just lousy driving

    1. 1 should be modified to mean an incident is intended to affect a driver on a different team, positively or negatively. I don’t think orders between teammates should be regulated, even if some should be ignored by drivers

      1. I’m a fan of this interpretation. Let Tsunoda kill his race thinking it will benefit someone else if he wants (or his team wants) but if he’d taken out Lewis, banhammer.
        However we need the other side of the equation. Drivers should be fighting for realistic points, so how do you police Stroll moving out of the way of Lewis and living to fight another day for 5-10th? Seems realistic, why burn tires fighting someone who is way way faster than you. Norris OTOH seemed to gift the position, though tires might have been a factor. Not sure how to police that.

  3. Eh, I’m for allowing team orders within the same team but I don’t understand what you mean by “intended to affect a driver on a different team, positively or negatively.”

    Cos I’m fairly sure one of the whole points of doing strategy is to affect a driver on a different team negatively. Like asking one of your team’s to stay back and hold a rival driver back. That seems like a fair strategy to me.

    1. @yaru I think it refers to the following (consider please only the Max vs Lewis battle as context):
      Affect a driver of a different team positively: Gasly, let’s say, has clearly more pace than Verstappen, and it’s running in front of him in the race. Gasly just steps aside and becomes his rear-gunner.
      Affect a driver of a different team negatively: Russell hits Verstappen while being lapped, kind of that Ocon-Max situation in Brazil years ago – Ocon unlapped himself back then, but you know what I mean.

  4. It proves one thing, the most important thing is getting over the line first. How you do it, or whatever methods you employ is a discussion for when the flag as dropped.

    Even if you were black flagged, its still of utmost importancy to finish, preferbly as high up as possible.
    Finishing is a fact, crashing into others, cutting the track, etc is a discussion, one doesn’t necessarily have to lose.

    It’s the type of behaviour that gets incentivisized by the rules and how the rules are upheld and applied.

  5. DTM wasn’t team orders (legal), but manufacture orders (illegal in my book, but not in DTM where its been utilised almost every year!).

    If Bottas moved over for Hamilton in the late laps, you wouldn’t be surprised. Bit if Hamilton was languishing only to find Norris, Ricciardo, Vettel (yeah right), Stroll, Russell and Latifi slowed to let him past, there would be outrage.
    Obviously Max could have the Alfa Tauri move aside and it would be just as dubious.

    The worst thing about that DTM finale was that Kelvin van der Linde’s behaviour and driving was appalling. He needs a race ban for that in my book. Was Schumacher 97 x2!

    1. van der Linde should have a race ban and Winward should be thrown out of the championship

      1. He only did what he did because he wanted to win. In the championhsip leading up to the final race governance was all over the place hence he took a chance, it didn’t work out for him . It was up to the stewards to give him an appropriate punisment. But the precidence for the punishment leading up to that point has been awful. Hence this is the outcome. You can’t hate the guy for trying with the full knowledge of the circumstances (I am not saying you do). As they say in America “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”.

      2. @paeschli A race ban really? It was an overly ambitious overtake similar to what Verstappen tried on Hamilton in Monza. They know it’s not on but keep pressing though nonetheless. Until the inevitable contact happens.

        Since van de Linde and Verstappen were partly alongside there will also be some blame on the defending driver and the penalty is quite low.

        In both cases the defending driver was overly cautious as well, which, perhaps oddly enough, usually just makes things worse. Lawson braked so early you see the cars swarm him on both sides. Likewise, Hamilton also should have just shoved Verstappen off on the first part of the chicane.

        1. similar to

          only in your dimension that is ;)

        2. Do you really believe that move was like Verstappen and Hamilton? Seems like you are just trying to poke up a fire.

          1. you can hardly put both duels on one level

  6. Nothing new in DTM, see The Zandvoort race in 2009:
    “Ekstrom finished the race at the Dutch track in second place after making up a deficit of more than five seconds to the 2008-spec Audis of Oliver Jarvis and Alexandre Premat in just a handful of laps towards the end of the race, but he has been handed a five-second penalty, which drops him to third behind Jarvis.”
    “In passing drivers Jarvis and Premat under these circumstances, driver Ekstrom gained an advantage. This represents a case of prohibited team orders.”
    “Abt and Phoenix have been fined 25,000 Euros each, although only 5000 Euros has to be paid immediately. The remaining 20,000 of both fines is a suspended punishment, which will only be paid if there is a further breach of the rules during the rest of this season.”

  7. DTM has always been about the brands. That’s how they sell cars in German domestic market. Kids who are into motorsport pick a manufacturer (much like a football team) and a favourite driver in that team (much like football again). To think that Mercedes was going to throw away an oppurtunity without influencing the result would have been optimistic. It is a super old and established series with its’ own rules. This is why they are struggling to find a place in the modern world of motorsports and need of big entities like Redbull to influence with sponsorship and drivers etc. It is hard to compare all this to the ways of F1.

    1. And this is precisely why no matter how much they tried, they could never truly grow the DTM outside of Germany.

      1. I thought it worked fine for DTM when there were more than 3 manufacturers involved plus some privateers / independend teams ;
        between mid 80s and 90s the sport & technology was quite open => technology developed, giving enough room for difference. Therefore no dull dominance around — if I remember correctly =>
        => everybody happy, sport soared
        Team / Brand orders come more into play when you streamline technology; standardised cars do not allow for catching up => the guy who wins the 1st race of the season is the Golden Boy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
        which is dullest

  8. Wow! That’s the first full report of the DTM finale I’ve read and that is truly shocking and farcical. Teams should not be allowed to do that, it it will be an utter travesty if it happens in F1 this year.

    The incident reminded me of another similar one that happened in the BTCC in 1991. This was nowhere near as bad as the DTM one, but only because it ultimately didn’t really make any difference; Hoy would have won anyway and the rest of the BMWs weren’t as effective as the Winward team, but the intent was the same. The two contenders were Will Hoy of BMW and John Cleland of Vauxhall, but back then there were three separate competitive BMW teams (plus a lot more slower ones who may also have helped if given the chance): the works cars of Jonathan Palmer and (in this race) Tim Sugden, and two separate teams owned by Vic Lee, one containing Will Hoy and Ray Bellm, the other Tim Harvey and Laurence Bristow. Vauxhall, on the other hand, only had one team of John Cleland and Jeff Allam. Hoy went into the race with a 17-point lead over Cleland, and the points system was 24 for a win, 18 for second, so really Cleland had to win the race, while Hoy only needed fifth. In the race, John Cleland ran second behind Andy Rouse’s Toyota, while Hoy slipped to sixth. Then, Hoy’s army of BMW drivers came into play to help him, as Palmer let him through into fifth, and then preceded to defend Hoy, along with Bellm (his actual teammate) and Bristow, to stop other cars getting past him, while Tim Harvey went after the leaders to stop Cleland from winning. This undoubtedly helped Hoy out, as he wouldn’t have finished in the top five without his many teammates, but was superfluous in the end as Cleland wore out his tyres and slipped back to ninth. However, the intent was no different to the DTM one, with different BMW teams helping each other out for the manufacturer, and also for the owner.

    Of course, this was nowhere near as controversial as the finale the following year in 1992, when Tim Harvey’s teammate Steve Soper took John Cleland out of the race to allow Harvey to claim the title, and prompted Cleland to make a famous speech about Soper ending, ‘the man’s an animal.’

    1. @f1frog DTM is special in that “teams” have historically always been based on the manufacturers.

      And like the article also notes, we do see this type of extended team play happening in F1 currently.

  9. Race or match fixing in other sports results in disqualifications and, often, lawsuits ending in eye-watering payouts.
    In motorsport, it’s defended and even celebrated…
    And the more there is at stake, the more likely it is to be used. It’s a system used, to some extent, in every single event.

    In F1 there is a WCC which, it could be argued, makes it acceptable for swapping cars around. But F1 also has a concurrent WDC which should automatically forbid this behaviour. Contradictory? Yes, absolutely. 100%.
    And the fact that the FIA is perfectly happy having rules that are almost always ignored/forgotten only serves to promote further exploitations of those rules.
    Honestly, it still surprises me that some people think F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport.

    1. S I’m quite sure if there was true race fixing in F1 it would not be defended and celebrated. It sure wasn’t in Austria 02. So I’m not sure what you mean by being used to some extent in every single event, but it certainly is not the Austria 02 type thing, which is what is the most blatant. It sounds to me like you are taking any team order for a driver swap, or any thing like Tsunoda did, as rules exploitation, and that just isn’t the case. As well, if F1 is not the pinnacle of motorsport, what is?

      1. Tsunoda raced for his own position @robbie. Stroll and Norris stepped aside and let their manufacturer-linked driver through for an easy overtake.
        But this was only one of thousands of examples. Austria 02 was blatantly obvious as was Hockenheim 2010, but other instances are more subtle, such as the fiddling with pit strategies which occurs at every event.
        From a WCC perspective they seem fine, but from a WDC perspective, it is analogous to rigging and race-fixing. It is, quite literally, engineering a specific result using non-sporting means and outside control. That’s not sport.
        No series can ever hope to run both a teams championship and a drivers championship at the same time without compromising (removing) sporting purity. Especially when multiple teams are linked via powerful external suppliers – automotive manufacturers, in this case.

        Additionally, I’d say that a series that has only 2 legitimate championship contenders with so many events remaining is not a healthy series by any stretch. Certainly not the ‘pinnacle.’ And the fact that this pattern has been clear for many years right from pre-season testing only furthers that point.
        Personally, I don’t think there is a ‘pinnacle of motorsport’ – there are just different technical and sporting rules for each series. Other (and many lower) categories tend to be more sportingly pure – is that more like the pinnacle of a sport? There are other series which may be considered equal to F1 on a technical level in many ways, but simply don’t aspire to the same global goals or have the same generous resources.
        Not that the FIA would grant them World Championship status even if they were eligible anyway, because F1 is the FIA’s own golden goose.

        1. Or, instead, you could interpret it as: Tsunoda willfully damaged his own race result, fighting a battle which would ultimately gain him far less in the race than it would cost him, for the benefit of a driver on another team. Stroll and Norris, on the other hand, allowed a car part without fighting as a strategy to improve their own race results.

          I’m not saying it’s anywhere near as clear cut as this, but you can’t legitimately give Tsunoda a free pass while attacking Norris and Stroll for their actions. It’s been well known in F1 for as long as I’ve followed it that a backmarker or midfielder fighting a frontrunner coming through the field is a bad strategy call 99% of the time: it just costs lap time, when they’ll probably get through anyway eventually.

  10. Hypothetically speakinf, if there was an additional F1 World Manufacturer’s Championship (like in IndyCar), would that make such a situation more or less likely ??

    1. There has been since 1981 (prior to that it was the International Cup)

  11. I’ve never had any issue with team orders because for me they are simply a part of the sport & have been going back to the very start.

    Likewise the sort of manufacturer orders that often go on in DTM is something I don’t have an issue with because that again is just a part of that type of racing where it’s more about the brands than it is the teams. I don’t follow DTM as closely now as I used to but when I did in the 90s & after it’s rebirth in the 2000’s when I was watching every race I don’t think I could name most of the teams because DTM was always more about the manufacturer brands.

    It was never framed as been Zakspeed Vs. Joest Vs. Abt, It was always Mercedes Vs. Audi Vs. Opel & it was always the teams driving for the manufacturer rather than the drivers driving for the teams. That is why you always used to have fans rooting for the brands rather than teams & even at times even the drivers.

    The Japanese Super GT series is kinda similar in that regard.

    1. Super GT is quite different – although there are 3 brands in GT500, each contracting ‘franchised’ teams – the teams themselves have much more individual identity. Kunimitsu and TOMS, for example, are hugely popular because of themselves and their own long-term involvement and success far more than their manufacturer links.
      The fact that the teams from each manufacturer are not only allowed but encouraged to fight each other is a huge part of what makes both the teams and the series so popular. The manufacturers never dictate which order the cars must finish in or that they are not allowed to race each other – and they all know that the purity of the competition (in that sense) is vital to its success. ‘Fixed’ results are quite possibly the biggest turn-off for any sports fan.

  12. Another article where we should be able to search by ‘Norberto Fontana’ and get a mention.
    As far as I recall, and unlike Tsunoda (which was totally fair!), Fontana’s blocking overstepped the rules, as he was a lap down.

  13. I have an opinion
    18th October 2021, 14:03

    Imagine if Toto had said “schieb ihn raus!” to Hamilton on the radio at the start of the British Grand Prix. That is the kind of team order that is legal in DTM. No wonder Liam Lawson is done with that contemptible series.

    1. Kelvin van der Linde drives an Audi and was simply trying to win the race. He saw Lawson brake early and leave the door open on the inside. He was not trying to help a Mercedes driver win the championship.

      Pretty much the exact same thing happened in race one. It’s just daft driving from Lawson to brake so early and take that corner like he’s on an empty track. Lawson later took out a Mercedes in similar fashion. Even worse since he was nowhere near making that overtake stick. So he also needs to look at himself for taking people out.

  14. Nobody cares fears that rule in f1.

  15. IMO the rule is already there. If you are blue flagged and don’t give way then you must be penalized including being black flagged.

  16. I think overwhelmingly drivers and teams understand to keep out of the main players’ way, especially when it comes down to the final Championship deciding races. Interfering is just not on. Sure, hard racing? Fair game. I don’t think Tsunoda attempted anything other than hard racing. Sure MS had his contracted rear gunners in EI and RB where EI particularly was intentionally trying to block the likes of JV for example, even in qualifying, but then there was a contract for MS’s teammates to be subservient so of course they would take that behaviour to the extreme. I think it is very rare and unlikely that teams or drivers would interfere in a fight that is not theirs.

  17. The rules clearly state that any action or manipulation that affects the unpredictable nature of racing shall be referred to suspension or exclusion. Yet, paradoxically, it seems like the FIA are unable to act upon this clear incident. What’s the point of rules and consequences if they aren’t applied?

  18. The damage this incident caused to DTM reputation is minor compared to the alternative. There’s always been this perception that open wheel racing is superior to sports cars, and that the drivers are better. If a teenager from formula 2 came to DTM and won the championship in his rookie year, it would be very bad for DTM

  19. Ever since big corporations entered Formula 1, sport side of the show is least important than the business, advertisement, PC, … and corporations will be the end of it eventually.

    1. Well it’s been decades now for corporate involvement, and if anything Liberty have started the turnaround for a more balanced and sustainable F1 as well as a better product on the track. This should encourage more sponsors and growth in the sport, and sponsors are what make motorsport happen at all.

      1. By corporations I meant F1 team owners.

  20. Can somebody please enlighten me on the Jerez 1997 notion made in this article (and in another one by Keith previously), where it is hinted that Mclaren & Williams colluded to alter the results of the race?

    From what I have studied & have seen in the footage from the race, the Williams only decided to slow down & not fight the two Mclarens for the win as they feared Villeneueve might have been carrying some damage on the car from the contact with Schumacher. That would be absolutely allright & solely a team decision right?

    Or was there more to it? Did Williams approach Mclaren team during the race to communicate this arrangement? Or was that communicated through radio? (by Williams to Villenueve & then by Mclaren to its drivers) Even so, that would still be considered as within all rules in my opinion.

    1. No you pretty much have all the info correct, especially since indeed no collusion was found. From what I understand there was no collusion type radio communication during the race other than between Mac and their drivers, as it pertains to running order, as that would indeed have been evidence of collusion. A small part of the story was that DC was ordered to let Mika by, and that became Mika’s first F1 win. I think the suggestion/rumour was that prior to the race Williams asked the Mac drivers to not interfere with JV, but nothing was proven in that regard,and I seem to recall that Mosely had already warned everyone on the grid that interference with the two Championship contenders would result in penalties into the next season. I think some of that directive came about because indeed EI had spent some time during the season trying to disrupt JV on the track. For sure JV had to limp the car home, having to back off on occasion to prevent overheating as his left side rad was damaged.

  21. roberto giacometti
    19th October 2021, 5:41

    AAh let us all not forget that the “great” Manuel fangio got one of his world championships by the simple fact that his team mate – the truly great Peter Collins, pulled into the pits and HANDED OVER HIS PERFECTLY FUNCTIONING CAR so that the “great” one could win the title, back in the Fifty’s. Team tactics have been going on since whenever.

    IT IS A TEAM SPORT – anyone who expects anything other than the best interests of each team being number one priority is deluding themselves.

  22. What you can’t control, don’t try to !
    => we have to find other solutions to address this problem

  23. I would say only RedBull has 4 cars in the championship. Them working together would be fine. Frankly given the unfolding of the season and the dishonesty of its proceedings following Silverstone and Hungary I have to admit I expected RedBull to already use this.

  24. There was no “Let’s Get Them” in DTM at all.

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