Fear of team orders in Formula 1 is immature

No phrase terrifies Formula 1 teams as much as 'team orders'. But it should not.

Team orders are legal and there are circumstances when their use is perfectly acceptable. The reaction to the mere suggestion that Mercedes may need to use them to keep Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg under control has proved F1 has yet to grow up and stop being so scared of it.

Arguments over team orders tend to lack nuance. To many, team orders are a hard and fast concept meaning pre-ordained finishing positions. Nothing more, nothing less.

Only the most extreme form of team orders work like that. Driver A must always finish ahead of Driver B regardless of circumstances is only a tiny, disreputable, part of the constituency of team orders

What "team orders" actually covers is a multitude of commands, ranging from the pre-arrangement of positions (usually unacceptable unless a title is on the line) to ordering one car past another because it's on a quicker strategy (innocuous and necessary). It is not a one-size-fits-all case of "race fixing".

The idea of any kind of team orders being implemented at Mercedes seems outrageous to some, even in this post-ban era. But the spectre of using them strikes fear into F1 hearts.

Mercedes has been applauded for saying it won't impose team orders on Rosberg and Hamilton, but let's not pretend this is purely because it is a team of "racers".

Part of the decision-making process is surely rooted in the fact that to admit to doing so would be a spectacular PR own goal, because of how cartoonishly pejorative the use of the phrase has become.

Historically, team orders are nothing new. Head back to the early days of grand prix racing and the idea of a hierarchy in a team was very clear and far more formal than anything you see today.

The original high-profile team orders controversies were in the first few decades of grand prix racing. Occasionally, wheel hammers were propelled with intent to wound as a result...

It was the convention to have pre-ordained number one and number two drivers. The most famous example was Peter Collins handing his Ferrari over to Juan Manuel Fangio at Monza in 1956 while still in with an outside chance of the title himself. Fangio took the car to second and won the title. Collins just saw it as his duty.

The tipping point in F1's attitude towards team orders was the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix. And rightly so, for that was an egregious display of lack of respect for the fans, who watched Rubens Barrichello "win" the race for all but the last couple of hundred metres, when he slowed to let Ferrari team-mate Michael Schumacher past.

It was a very serious self-inflicted wound, and difficult to justify for Ferrari given that Schumacher was already 21 points clear in the drivers' championship (in the 10-points-for-a-win era). Completely needless and an insult to those watching.

The response was extremely damaging. Questions were raised far beyond the specialist media about the legitimacy of grand prix racing as a sport.

It was not the first time, for McLaren's decision to make David Coulthard let Mika Hakkinen past to win the 1998 Australian GP after the Finn lost the lead to a 'phantom' pitstop also earned criticism. At least one bookmaker was forced to comment publicly after outraged punters who had backed Coulthard to win complained.

But Austria 2002 was the race that led directly to the knee-jerk ban on team orders, which was a millstone around F1's neck until the ridiculous rule stating "team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited" was dropped after 2010.

Both Australia '98 and Austria '02 are examples of the unacceptable use of team orders. There is no excuse for either, and fans were right to be furious. Neither could be justified as being for the greater good of the team.

To argue all team orders are equal, however, is nonsensical. And this is where F1 has let itself down badly and made things much worse.

The great example of this was the 2010 German GP and the famous "Fernando is faster than you" order to Felipe Massa.

Eventually, Massa did cede the lead to world champion and team-mate Alonso. That the Spaniard went to the final race leading the championship but just only lost out does at least partly justify the decision.

You can argue that to deny Massa a first victory a year to the day since his life-threatening crash in qualifying for the Hungarian GP was, on a human level, pretty despicable.

It robbed F1 of a great feel-good story and, personally, I would rather Ferrari had let the race play out without interference. But there is a legitimate argument that, for the good of the team, the positions had to be swapped.

It was what followed that was ridiculous - and far more damaging than what happened on track. During the post-race press conference, both Alonso and Massa had to lie through their teeth about what had happened. Not because of fundamental dishonesty, but because of being forced to by the rules.

"I was trying not even to speak because it was bad," Massa later said about the incident in an interview with Autosport. "It was not nice for everybody, the team as well as me. I'm sure if things happened again, they would also think about it twice."

That race showed the ban on team orders was untenable. In reality, it always was a given that there was an unwritten rule that team orders were acceptable if a title was at stake.

For example, nobody objected when Ferrari ordered Kimi Raikkonen past Massa (Brazilian Ferrari drivers really don't do well out of team orders) to win at Interlagos 2007 to win the title.

You can argue such an allowance is reasonable, but where the line between an unacceptable team order and an acceptable one is drawn is indistinct.

In recent years, we've seen various team orders controversies. At Malaysia in 2014, Williams had its own imbroglio. Again, Massa was at the heart of it after refusing to let the seemingly quicker Valtteri Bottas past late in the race to have a go at passing Jenson Button's McLaren.

Massa refused (not helped by the language used over the radio bearing an uncanny resemblance to that at Hockenheim four years earlier) and there was plenty of scrutiny of Williams after the race.

But still, even when legal, this paralysing fear of team orders was in evidence. Over the radio, instead of just telling him to let him past, the "faster than you" phrase was used. This was a euphemistic team order.

After the race, there was even an attempt to draw a distinction between a "team order" and a "team instruction", so fearful has the o-word become even though the two phrases are, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable. That's an outstanding example of how F1 teams still tie themselves in knots over this.

Unfortunately, to pretend that team orders don't exist is not acceptable. There may be some parameters within Mercedes' much-vaunted rules of engagement that might be interpreted as such, after all. And if there are, they will likely be entirely justified.

In fact, if there are no rules that could be interpreted as team orders, Mercedes has probably been a little too soft and too fearful of them.

That's not to say Mercedes should have ordered Hamilton to hold station at the end of the Austrian GP - it shouldn't - but to try and eliminate any use of team orders makes it impossible for the team to shut down an on-track situation that might be escalating.

By suggesting they won't be used, were that to happen, doubtless attempts would be made to hide the fact.

But if there are such orders, they will not favour one driver over the other at this point. It will be about the team's good and avoiding repeats of what happened in Spain and Austria this year.

This is where F1 needs to be a little more mature in the way it treats team orders. Being terrified every time the concept is mentioned is as idiotic as cackhandedly trying to cover up when they have been used.

Not all team orders are equal. There is a spectrum at play here with Austria 2002 at one end and strategy-induced wave-bys at the other. In between there is a large area, some of it grey.

But to pretend it doesn't exist is immature. In road cycling, for example, it's very clear that members of a team must sacrifice themselves to the service of whoever the strongest rider is for the given stage. It's a big part of the interest in the sport and part of the storyline.

In F1, there is a childish fear of the whole concept.

Yes, we want to see drivers be able to race. Yes, moments like Hamilton passing Rosberg on the last lap in Austria need to happen. But teams should also be allowed to operate as race teams.

F1 is a team sport, and let's celebrate it as such. That's why, honestly communicated and not feared, team orders do have a place.

It's travesties like Austria 2002 that must not be allowed to happen. And there is the catch-all "bringing the sport into disrepute" rule that exists as a stick to beat those who take it too far.

Incidentally, that was the rule Ferrari was judged to have broken after the 2010 German GP. There was no willingness to use the team orders ban to disqualify cars - the weightiest possible indictment of a misguided rule.

So the lesson for teams here is to stop fearing the words team and orders so much. Perhaps then F1 will avoid backing itself into a corner next time they are used.