What is right and what is wrong on team orders?

It was possibly the most glum podium in F1 history. Red Bull had claimed a one-two finish on a day it was expected to struggle, after an exciting wheel-to-wheel battle for supremacy. Winner Sebastian Vettel in so doing put clear points over those he's expected to be in a title fight with this year. While Lewis Hamilton finished in third, his new team's car showing that it has potency on race day and is much more competitive than many had thought/feared in advance. Yet, you'd never know it. Of the three drivers' faces two were sheepish and the other angry.

Sebastian Vettel won today, but that
was only the beginning of the story
Credit: Alex Comerford / CC

It was team orders what did it. Both Red Bull and Mercedes, whose cars had ran in close formation at the front for most of the Malaysian Grand Prix's duration, chose to enact a 'hold station' order from the pitwall after their final stops. This should have meant that Mark Webber finished ahead of Vettel to win and that Hamilton finished ahead of Nico Rosberg in third and fourth. Rosberg chose (however reluctantly) to obey the order; Seb didn't and won the race.

So, Vettel did wrong? It seems so. He confirmed after the race that he heard the instruction as well as apologised for making a 'mistake' in taking the lead to win. But it's hard to believe that Seb didn't know what he was doing. It appears most likely that his competitive instincts took over and he couldn't resist seizing the extra seven points on offer, regardless of everything else.

Retro F1: Gilles Villeneuve tribute - the 1981 Monaco Grand Prix

Hey y’all. The latest Retro F1 took place today. And given that this week marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of the legend that is Gilles Villeneuve, I decided this one should double as a tribute to the great man.

We therefore watched the 1981 Monaco Grand Prix, one of Villeneuve’s best ever drives, using the YouTube link below. The only drawback was that the commentary is in German, but we managed to work around that.



Retro F1 is when we watch a classic F1 race in full online, and chat about it on Twitter as we go, using the #RetroF1 hashtag. All are welcome!

Highlights of the Twitter chat are below.

Welcome all to the latest Retro F1, which is a Gilles Villeneuve tribute special, watching the 1981 Monaco GP. Here’s the link to the Monaco GP '81 race footage, I’m clicking play now :)

@CamillaKristel Should be interesting.
@kanemelegatti Ready guys?
@mario_eb Fuel in for Retro F1 :)
Hi Mario. Glad you could join us. Should be a good one :)
@mario_eb Hi Graham. Surely it'll be fun. Although my server's a little slow now I'll be following Retro F1 maybe I'll need my KERS ;)
Or your DRS.

@mario_eb Haha :D Ok, let me activate it :D

Looking back: 1981 - F1's strangest season

The recently ended 2010 season is commonly accepted as a great one. When thinking of great F1 seasons some readily spring to mind, such as the dramatic championship finishes of 1964, 1986 and 2008, or the competitiveness of 1974, 1997 and 2003, or even the drama and controversy of 1976 and 1989. The season of 1982 however tends to rise above others in such debates. It after all can boast no fewer than 11 different winners (for seven different constructors) in 16 races, no individual winning more than two of them. This all was alongside multiple acts of drama on and off the track, conducted in an atmosphere of extreme acrimony. Such is the myth that surrounds 1982 that it even had a specialist book about it written and published a quarter of a century later, by the sadly recently-departed Christopher Hilton.

However I feel that the season which preceded 1982, 1981, is somewhat forgotten about, and has a strong claim as a memorable and dramatic season. It can certainly match 1982 for controversy and acidity. Indeed, much of the 1982 politics were simply a continuation of those in 1981! The 1981 championship battle was tighter and went to the wire to a much greater extent than 1982's did. Plus the on track racing action (easy to forget in all of this) was generally much more diverting in 1981. It seems to have been lost in time somewhat that most of the races in 1982, i.e. the hour and a half on a Sunday, were soporific spectacles. And 1981 isn't far off 1982 in terms of variation of winners, no driver won more more than three races, the world champion totalled but 50 points, and in the final drivers' table no fewer than five drivers were within seven points of the top of the table. Eat your heart out 2010.

Even if one maintains that 1981 was not among the sport's greatest seasons, it certainly has a claim to being one the sport's strangest. It started with a race that never was in South Africa, attended by only 19 cars, the races were participated in by a field of cars, for the most part, in flagrant breach of the rule makers' flagship regulations, and it ended in a car park in Las Vegas, wherein the three contenders stumbled disastrously over the line, and Nelson Piquet claimed his first World Championship by a point, almost in spite of himself.