No Plan on Team Orders, Says Dennis

McLaren boss Ron Dennis said on Thursday he had no plans to impose team orders yet, though the Briton suggested he could do it depending on the situation.

Team orders have been making the headlines since the Austrian Grand Prix two weeks ago, where Ferrari's Rubens Barrichello was asked to let teammate Michael Schumacher through to take second place in order to maintain a four-point lead over David Coulthard.

After the first six races of the season, Coulthard lies 34 points in front of teammate Mika Hakkinen, who set the pace in today's practice for the Monaco Grand Prix. Despite that fact, Dennis admitted there were no specific plans to order Hakkinen to help the Scot.

"There are none (orders)," Dennis said. "We have the contractual ability to instruct our drivers at any stage during the season to follow an instruction and that applies at the first Grand Prix through to the last Grand Prix.

"We will effect judgement in any given situation and if we instruct a driver to do something we will tell you. There's no plan."