F1 team orders “cheating fans out of what they pay to watch”

The team orders drama at the Hungarian Grand Prix - where McLaren spent half the race begging Lando Norris to give the lead back to Oscar Piastri - is still a hot topic, even a month later.

Why? Because it taps into the narrative about whether Norris has really got what it takes to become world champion, and as the only driver with even a vague hope of beating Max Verstappen to the title this year, there are plenty of people who think McLaren should now be throwing all of its weight behind Lando.

Among them is Damon Hill. World champion with Williams in 1996, he went through that campaign without the team selecting a lead driver, despite him having vastly more experience than rookie teammate Jacques Villeneuve.

Williams didn’t need to, of course: the FW18 was in a league of its own that year, and so the title battle between the two drivers went right down to the final round in Japan… where Villeneuve’s wheel dramatically fell off.

“There are times when team orders make sense,” Hill concedes. “It's a bit like the cycling, you know? There are times when the team has to come together to support the rider that's best placed to win. And that's the same in our sport. If there's a driver who's best placed to win the championship, you really ought to get behind him.

“The trouble is that the business end of the sport is predicated on constructors’ points, and this is not of interest to the fan.”

He makes a good point. F1 now finds itself in a happy place where seven drivers have won races in a single season for the first time since 2012, yet Verstappen’s early dominance means the only championship with any jeopardy left in it is the one between the teams.

Red Bull leads that too, but with Sergio Perez finding results hard to come by, McLaren have closed the gap to just 42 points and Ferrari aren’t that much further behind. Mercedes is arguably the form team with three wins in four races, but it has much more catching up to do. And does any of that make you want to tune in every Sunday? Not likely.

“The fan wants to see who's going to win, which driver is going to win in which car,” says Hill. “Yes, they support teams, but... we want to see a title fight between two drivers.”

Or more. And preferably without any of them being told to move out of the way because their teammate is in a stronger position mathematically, argues the 63-year-old.

“What we don't want to do is be watching a race, thinking we’re watching a race, and it turns out it was just drivers obeying team orders. We've seen some races that have been like that, and I think that's cheating the fans out of what they've been asked to pay to watch. They come to races, they don't want to see an organised result.

“And so team orders are tricky and contentious, and we've tried to find a way to bring in restrictions on them. But you can't deny people radio communications. We had all that nonsense with Multi 21 and stuff!”

Team orders were banned from the start of 2003… so everyone just spoke in code instead. Remember “Fernando is faster than you”? Some calls were more subtle than others. The Multi 21 saga between Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber came long after the ban was lifted for 2011, but clearly no team ever wants to be seen calling off the excitement because it suits them.

Still, if you’ve followed F1 long enough, you may remember that Hill’s 22nd and final win - at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1998, when a multi-car pile up and several crashes in the wet meant only six drivers finished - also hinged on team orders.

Out of the carnage Jordan had emerged in first and second place, but with the laps counting down Ralf Schumacher was rapidly closing in on teammate Hill with the team’s first ever F1 win on the line. Sensing that they could be about to throw it all away, the British driver got on the radio.

“I’m going to put something to you here, and I think you’d better listen to this,” he said. “If we race, if we two race, we could end up with nothing. So it’s up to Eddie [Jordan, team boss]. You’ve got to tell Eddie… if we don’t race each other, we’ve got an opportunity to get a first and second. It’s your choice.”

Schumacher was instructed to hold position (understandably, it took him an awfully long time to acknowledge the order) and Jordan claimed what would turn out to be the only 1-2 finish in its history. How does Hill look back on that given his views on team orders now?

“I make the distinction about that event, which was… they were my orders. They weren't team orders!” he laughs. “They were the driver’s orders, so that’s ok!”

Damon Hill was talking to TG at the F1 Exhibition, which is open now at Excel London.