Miami GP radio controversies are latest in F1’s complex history with team orders

Drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz let their disdain for their respective teams show over team radio at the Miami Grand Prix, with the latter falling foul to a team orders mix-up that meant he lost out to his team-mate in the race.

Sainz was assured that he wouldn’t be passed by team-mate Alex Albon just as the Thai driver passed him under DRS. The Spaniard was left feeling “stupid” and “powerless” after the move, and let his anger at the team known at the conclusion of the grand prix.

In the same race, Hamilton called Ferrari out for what he considered poor teamwork as he got stuck behind Charles Leclerc.

At the same time, McLaren committed to leaving team orders off the table to allow its championship-leading driver pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to fight it out on track.

McLaren’s stance to “let them race” was reaffirmed by CEO Zak Brown in the aftermath of the grand prix, and follows team boss Andrea Stella’s remarks that ordering one driver to move out of the way could “destroy” the side’s future chances.

The two instances sum up the love-hate relationship that Formula 1 has with team orders, which is a complex relationship that’s rumbled on for decades in the series. However, Williams’ call to hold position pales in comparison to other examples of team orders being deployed in the championship’s history.

Here’s a run-through of a series of earlier team orders calls that proved to be particularly controversial.

1998 Australia – McLaren forces Coulthard to make way

With its Adrian Newey-penned MP4/13, McLaren rocked up to the 1998 season opener in Melbourne with by far the quickest car, and token pressure from Michael Schumacher in the opening laps relented when the Ferrari driver’s engine gave up on lap six. For McLaren, which had enjoyed great promise and yet endured a string of reliability issues in testing, the race was simply about preserving the 1-2 positions. Mika Hakkinen, who beat David Coulthard to pole by just 0.043 seconds, led into the first corner to retain the lead.

McLaren had made a deal for the race: the driver that exited the first corner with the lead would receive preferential team orders treatment, to ensure that neither driver was pushing their machinery too hard. By that measure Hakkinen was in the pound seat and, when both drivers did their first scheduled stops, the Finn preserved his position at the front. Then came the ‘phantom’ pit call. Hakkinen received a radio call that he interpreted as a call to stop for fresh tyres, and came into the pits at the end of the 36th lap. Yet, there were no mechanics in sight. Hakkinen drove through the pits and returned to the track, handing Coulthard the lead.

After their final stops, Coulthard had a 12-second lead over Hakkinen, but received calls from the team suggesting that he should reverse the order in light of Hakkinen’s additional visit to the pitlane. Dutifully, Coulthard started to back off to ensure that Hakkinen could close in towards the end, and let his team-mate through with three laps remaining. This brought much in the way of criticism from people who believed fans had paid good money to watch a race, not an orchestrated procession, and the World Motor Sport Council ended up getting involved.

1998 Belgium – Hill calls the shots for first Jordan win

A first-lap pile-up had thinned out the field at La Source. Wet weather in the Ardennes had rocked the opening phase of the Belgian Grand Prix, prompting a restart almost an hour after. On this restart, Damon Hill surged into the lead from third on the grid, as polesitter Hakkinen was tipped into a spin at the first corner and collected by Johnny Herbert. In the meantime, David Coulthard and Alex Wurz came together to promote Michael Schumacher into second, and the Ferrari driver began to hound his 1994 and 1995 title rival.

Schumacher, somewhat inevitably, took the lead from Hill on the eighth lap. The Ferrari was much stronger in the conditions, and Schumacher’s innate feeling for the car in low-grip scenarios ensured that he could open the taps to gain over three seconds per lap over the Jordan driver. Then came the turning point. Schumacher came up behind Coulthard, who had rejoined after the Wurz incident, and was completely blind to the McLaren into Pouhon. Although Coulthard tried to let him by, Schumacher careened straight into the back of him. Both were effectively out on the spot.

Hill thus reclaimed the lead, but with team-mate Ralf Schumacher rapidly catching him. Feeling the pressure, and worried that the younger Schumacher might try something risky, the 1996 champion put his point of view over the radio in a direct appeal to team principal Eddie Jordan.

“I’m going to put something to you here, and I think you better listen to this,” Hill implored. “If we race, if we two race, we could end up with nothing, so it’s up to Eddie. You’ve got to tell Eddie. If we don’t race each other, we’ve got an opportunity to get first and second. It’s your choice.”

It took a few laps for Jordan to come to a decision. He grappled with the idea of locking in the result, or letting the two race, and eventually decided to preserve the positions. Schumacher’s race engineer Sam Michael was briefed, and the Australian delivered the verdict to his driver – to stony silence. “Ralf, acknowledge” he eventually directed, to which the German replied “yes, Sam”.

And that was that – Hill kept the lead, and Jordan chalked up its first and only 1-2 finish in F1. But the Schumacher camp was incensed by the tactics; Michael stumped up the cash to buy his younger brother out of his Jordan contract for 1999, and Ralf moved to Williams.

2002 Austria – Ferrari gets team orders banned

It wasn’t the first time that Rubens Barrichello had been asked to move over for Michael Schumacher in Austria. A season prior, Barrichello gave up second for his team-mate as Coulthard took victory, but this has gone largely under the radar over the years thanks to the seismic reaction to 2002’s edition of the A1-Ring race.

The decision by Ferrari to swap Barrichello and Schumacher was not only seen as unnecessary given Ferrari’s utter superiority in 2002, but particularly egregious given that the Brazilian had led all but one lap throughout the grand prix. After all, it was Barrichello who had taken pole, and Barrichello who had led the field away and dispelled the threat of Schumacher behind him. And, amid a variety of midfield drama – Olivier Panis’ engine failure, and the monster shunt between Nick Heidfeld and Takuma Sato, Barrichello led through the safety car periods.

Schumacher had a brief period in the lead after Barrichello took his final stop, but pitted to restore the order. Subsequently, Ferrari team principal Jean Todt was seen passing a piece of paper covertly to technical chief Ross Brawn, who nodded affirmatively at the ephemera’s contents. Barrichello was thus ordered to move aside, and he initially resisted. Unfortunately, contractual clauses could not be so easily bypassed. “Let Michael pass for the championship,” Jean Todt barked over the radio.

Barrichello waited until the last moment to lift off, coming out of the final corner at half-speed to make his displeasure patently obvious. Schumacher won, but at the expense of every shred of good will to Ferrari; he was booed on the podium, even after the performative ushering of Barrichello to the top step.

This was the incident that caused team orders to be banned but, eight years later, Ferrari kicked down the door once again.

2010 Germany – “Fernando is faster than you”

Any direct team orders could not be handed out on the radio, per the FIA’s regulations after Austria 2002. Instead of stamping out the practice, it simply drove it underground – resulting in Ferrari’s barely disguised call to Felipe Massa at the 2010 German Grand Prix.

Massa pounced on polesitter Sebastian Vettel’s sluggish start to cruise into the lead from third on the grid, as the German focused on warding off Fernando Alonso into the first corner. Alonso nonetheless made it through into second, and the two Ferraris began pushing each other increasingly hard throughout, Massa told by engineer Rob Smedley to maintain his defence and not to let Alonso pass. In the meantime, Alonso was on the radio to his race engineer – a certain Andrea Stella – to express his dismay at not being let through.

Eventually, Ferrari had to make a decision as Alonso was the driver in the four-way championship fight, and it eventually delivered its verdict to Massa on the 49th lap.

“Fernando is faster than you,” Smedley delivered in a clear, staccato cadence. “Can you confirm you understood that message?”. Massa responded out of the hairpin by backing off to let Alonso through. Smedley added a footnote onto his message when the deed was done, telling Massa “Okay mate, good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry.”

As team orders were banned, and this was found to be case of transgressing that rule, Ferrari was fined $100,000. However, the FIA conceded that it was going to be impossible to police team orders and lifted the ban at the end of the season.

2013 Malaysia – Vettel defies “Multi 21” message

In a rain-affected start to the Malaysian Grand Prix, Mark Webber found his way into the lead after Sebastian Vettel arguably pitted for dry tyres too soon and lost time battling with the upper-midfielders on a wet/dry track surface. When the Australian made his stop at the end of the seventh lap, he came up for air with the lead over his team-mate.

In the high-degradation Pirelli era, it prompted a back-and-forth between team and drivers to aid tyre preservation; Vettel complained that Webber was too slow and attempted to ladle on the pressure, but was told to back off to conserve his rubber. Such was the degradation that it led to a four-stop strategy for both drivers, with Vettel briefly holding the lead between stops as the two overlapped across their stints, but first place ultimately settled on Webber’s shoulders after the final round of tyre changes.

Then came the call, one that has been erroneously carried into F1 folklore: both drivers were given the command “Multi Map 21”, a code for car #2 (Webber) to remain ahead of car #1 (Vettel). Assuming that didn’t prove clear enough, team principal Christian Horner told Vettel directly to hold position, but his driver defied all incoming commands to let Webber retain the lead. “This is silly, Seb, come on,” Horner added, exasperated by the situation unfolding on track, as Webber did his best to keep first place.

But Vettel made the move on lap 46 into Turn 4, and rather compounded the situation with a dramatic celebratory weave over the finish line. The cool-down room pre-podium was expectedly terse, Webber taking his seat and delivering the “Multi 21, Seb. Yeah, Multi 21” line, barely containing his fury. And, when podium interviews were a thing, added: “Seb made his own decisions and will have protection as usual.” Vettel later reckoned that he made a mistake going for the win, but eventually doubled down on his decision and stated: “The bottom line is I was racing, I was faster, I passed him, I won.”

2018 Russia – Bottas commanded to let Hamilton through

Valtteri Bottas had always been a bit of a dab hand at the barely-loved Sochi circuit; after all, he’d taken his maiden F1 win at the circuit around the 2014 Winter Olympics park in coastal Russia. And, when he parked his car on pole for the 2018 edition of the race, it looked as though he might bag his first victory of the season in a year in which he had struggled relative to Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton was embroiled in a title fight with Vettel at the time, although his chances of clinching a fifth world title had been boosted in the wake of the Ferrari driver’s German Grand Prix blunder at the Sachs Kurve, where he stuffed his car into the wall while leading.

Bottas held the lead into the first corner while Hamilton had to contend with a chasing Vettel, and the Briton ended up behind the Ferrari following their respective pitstops. Eventually, Hamilton held his car through the outside of the long-radius Turn 4 and dove down the inside of Turn 5 to repass his rival, reaching a net second place.

Once Hamilton had consolidated the position, Bottas received a message from engineer Tony Ross over the radio: “You need to let Lewis by at Turn 13 on this lap”. The Finn immediately played ball, waving his team-mate through to ensure Hamilton could extend his championship lead to 50 points. Although Bottas protested afterwards, stating that he was going to pick up the pace, a familiar message rung out over the radio.

“Valtteri, it’s James,” then-chief strategist James Vowles began, with the same opening gambit as his German GP command to switch positions. “We had a risk, Lewis against Vettel. He has a small blister. I had to do this to make sure we secured this, I understand.”

2024 Hungary – Norris told to let Piastri pass

One of the most recent examples of team radios reigning chaos on an F1 weekend was during the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, where McLaren was leading the race with Norris and Piastri ahead of the pack.

Norris was granted an undercut strategy despite running behind team-mate Piastri on the road, with the Australian leading Norris by around 2.5 seconds at the time of the stops. The small gap between the pair meant that it was extremely likely Norris would lead Piastri following the stops – but the Australian was reassured by his engineer Tom Stallard, who chimed over the radio “don’t worry about Lando.”

Of course, Piastri should have worried about his team-mate, as following his own pitstop and switch to the hard tyres for the closing stages of the race he came out behind the Briton. Norris was subsequently told to “re-establish the order at your convenience,” but the move didn’t come.

Having come out of the pits just 2.5 seconds behind Norris, Piastri made a mistake and dropped back further, making the change in position harder for the team to orchestrate. The Briton was repeatedly told to preserve tyres and let Piastri through, but he countered with the team that if they wanted the Australian to lead the race they should have stopped him first, instead.

After much back and forth, which was almost all broadcast on the global feed, Norris was told by engineer Will Joseph: “The way to win a championship is not by yourself. You’re going to need Oscar and you’re going to need the team.” Norris eventually obliged, and Piastri claimed his first grand prix win in Formula 1.

But the mood at Mclaren was frosty as the chequered flag fell, with Norris saying “yeah you don’t need to say anything” as he came home in second.