Last week's Russian Grand Prix saw Mercedes AMG Petronas continue their domination. Both of their drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were well clear of their rivals at Scuderia Ferrari. Bottas took pole position with Hamilton starting second, then the Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen started in third and fourth. A very typical starting order. The order did not change from the start, Bottas was P1, Hamilton P2, and so on. After the drivers came in to make their pit stops, Vettel had overtaken Hamilton by pitting earlier and going faster on his newer tires. However, this was quickly nullified as Hamilton made a brilliant move to take second place back from Vettel. The top 4 starters were running in qualifying order at this point, however this is where things became controversial.
Team orders have long since been a part of Formula 1 since its birth. The art of having the driver not contending for a championship sacrifice themselves in order to help the driver fighting for the championship do better has been highly scrutinized and has divided fans opinions for years. Team orders were about to rear their ugly head once again.
After taking P2 back from Vettel, Hamilton had overheated his tires and caused them to blister. Tire blisters work in much the same way skin blisters do, and when these occur they slow down the pace of the car. Zooming out to the larger picture, Hamilton leads Vettel by 40 points in the championship, and with only six races to go, it is highly likely he will take his fifth championship soon. Bottas is well behind these two drivers in the championship and this is where team orders come into play. Mercedes directed Bottas to let Hamilton pass him and for Bottas to block Vettel for the remainder of the race, therefore securing a 1-2 finish for Mercedes and building Hamilton's championship lead. This scenario worked, Mercedes scored a 1-2 and Hamilton now has a 50-point advantage over Vettel, a near insurmountable deficit to come back from. However, fans were not happy after the race.
Most fans, even non-Mercedes fans were upset because they feel that they were robbed of a proper fight for second place between Hamilton and Vettel. On-track battles between the two have been somewhat rare as most overtakes have occurred after pit stops, and off of race starts. The move Hamilton put on Vettel after his pitstop was perfect and something fans have been dying to see almost all year, and for a while things looked like Vettel would come back and there would be some back-and-forth overtaking for the final few laps of the race. Mercedes inverting their cars at the halfway point of the race stopped all of that from happening and led to another moderately uneventful Russian Grand Prix.
With a few laps to go, and when things seemed secured, Hamilton asked if he should let Bottas back through, and the team told him to carry on and win. After the race, Hamilton was unusually mute in his celebrations. He went on to let Bottas stand on the top step of the podium with him when receiving his trophy. Team personnel such as Wolff and chief strategist James Allen were apologetic towards Bottas and the situation he was forced into. They went on to say that if a similar situation happens after Hamilton wraps up this year's championship, Hamilton would be directed to move over for Bottas. Valtteri acknowledged the team and was very respectful towards them, and responded by saying that he would rather race things out than be handed a win.
From a personal standpoint, I am a Mercedes fan and Bottas is my favorite driver on the F1 grid. When I saw him pull over and let Hamilton through to the lead, I was obviously disappointed as Toto Wolff, Mercedes team boss, had made it clear that he would be free to race for the win. To a certain extent, I believe fans were robbed of a good shootout finish and I was robbed of watching my favorite driver cruise to what would have likely been a win. On the other hand, I completely understand why the team decided to invert the cars. Race weekends see twenty drivers driving around battling with each other for position, however Formula 1 is a lot more than that. Thousands of people work hard to build and run telemetry on these cars and F1 is a team sport more so than an individual sport. Mercedes want to win the constructors championship and having the ailing car lead while being blocked by the healthy car helps to do this. While organic racing is great, it is completely justified for Mercedes to have done this. Seeing Bottas respond by being accepting and respectful of the team's decision and saying he's ready to race things out with Lewis greatly increases my respect for him, which was already very high. Team orders are very helpful from a team management standpoint but one of the more annoying aspects of F1 to fan. Regardless of opinion on them, they will continue to be a part of the sport.
