FIA Set Up Working Group to Look into Team Orders

Formula One's ruling body has set up a working group to look into the thorny subject of 'team orders' and wants fans to participate after condemnation of Ferrari's tactics.

Ferrari and their drivers, World Champion Michael Schumacher and Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, were fined $1.0 million on Wednesday - with half suspended for a year - for their actions in Austria last month.

The punishment was for behaviour on the podium rather than the team's blatant manipulation of a Grand Prix that saw Barrichello ordered to allow Championship leader Schumacher to win.

International Automobile Federation (FIA) president Max Mosley told a news conference on Wednesday, after a World Motor Sport Council meeting, that he had wanted to punish Ferrari for their use of 'team orders' in the race as well.

He said the FIA had received more faxes and e-mails after Austria than ever before on a single issue, including the death at Imola in 1994 of Brazilian World Champion Ayrton Senna.

"It was extraordinary. For some reason, it completely captured the public's imagination."

But Mosley said that, after listening to Ferrari's defence, he realised that "legally and even morally we were constrained from doing anything" even if what happened in Austria was "bad from any point of view".

Everything Possible

Ferrari argued that they had lost Championships in the past by a handful of points and needed to do everything possible to ensure they won both titles this year. Team orders have always been a part of the sport and are not illegal, despite the worldwide outrage that this particular incident generated.

"You have to see it from the point of view of the competitors concerned," said Mosley, who brushed aside any suggestion that the world body was pro-Ferrari.

"The two drivers had no choice and the team have seen the World Championship slip away from them by a small amount of points three times in six years."

Mosley said that it would be futile to try to prevent teams from telling their drivers what to do because there were ways of implementing such orders clandestinely. But he said a working group, comprising four anonymous world council members, would be set up to look into the issues.

Website View

The public would be invited to contribute their suggestions through a section of the FIA's website.

"It's very easy to see what's wrong in this matter, harder to see what's right," he said.

"The problem is that none of us like team orders in certain circumstances but how do we stop them? Maybe the public can tell us what they think we should do. If it sounds sensible, we will do it.

"At the moment, we don't have a solution for the problem. So we are throwing the thing open to the public to see if they can change this aspect of motor sport."

Mosley said there was no specific time frame for the public response but the FIA hoped to have some ideas to consider by October.

"But if it takes longer, it really doesn't matter."