Schumacher Considered Ignoring Team Orders

Michael Schumacher, who won the Austrian Grand Prix to a barrage of booing on Sunday, said he had considered disobeying Ferrari's controversial team orders.

The four times World Champion took the chequered flag only after his Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello slowed in the last few metres after leading from the start. Schumacher, in a hostile news conference in which he refused to answer some questions, suggested he had even tried not to win and regretted the circumstances of a tainted victory.

Although Ferrari were in a class of their own, Schumacher's 58th career win was quite possibly the least deserved of his decade in Formula One.

"I was thinking very strongly about this," he said when asked whether he could have ignored the team orders and refused to pass Barrichello. "I was hoping that there would not be such an order.

"You sort of can see from the telemetry that on the straight when Rubens backed off, I backed off. But then he backed off even further.

"You sit outside and you have a lot of time to think about all this. We sit in there and it wasn't a long preparation. They came on the radio in the last couple of metres and said he would back off.

"I didn't feel like it. I have to be honest to say now it was probably the wrong decision to win this race. If I had the chance to turn it around, I would probably do so but I cannot now."

Schumacher had won four out of the past five races and arrived in Austria with a 21 point lead in the Championship while Barrichello has just one win in 153 starts.

It was the second year in a row that Barrichello had ceded position to Schumacher in Austria. Last season, the team ordered him to give up second place.