From Multi-21 to Crashgate: The six most controversial F1 team orders calls of all time

Oscar Piastri may have won the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix, but F1 team orders are dominating the headlines thanks to a McLaren pit call that nearly handed victory to Lando Norris, instead. It’s not the first time team orders have influenced a race — and it’s not even the most controversial.

From Crashgate to Multi 21, today we’re going to dig into some of the most controversial F1 team orders calls of all time.

2010 German Grand Prix

Say the phrase, “Fernando is faster than you,” and somewhere out there, a Felipe Massa fan will still cringe.

We’ll talk about the moment when team orders were banned from F1 below, but the quoted radio message from Rob Smedley to Ferrari driver Felipe Massa was clear: Your teammate is quicker, and you should let him through.

Massa launched into the lead at the start of the race, and his teammate Fernando Alonso was soon close behind. The two men began battling for the lead of a race that would ultimately impact the World Championship — and that resulted in Smedley’s message.

Massa allowed his teammate past at the hairpin. All Smedley could add was, “Okay mate, good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry.”

Still, the FIA determined that this constituted an act of issuing team orders, and Ferrari was fined $100,000 — but in the aftermath, the FIA also realized it was going to be next to impossible to police every team order transgression. It lifted the ban at the end of the 2010 season.

1998 Australian Grand Prix

Heading into 1998, McLaren looked like it had one heck of a good car, and it would be piloted by a pair of excellent teammates: Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard. Heading into the first race of the season, the team determined that whoever was leading at the first corner should go on to win the race — and that the other driver shouldn’t challenge him.

Hakkinen was that man, but later in the race, Coulthard inherited the lead when a miscommunication saw Hakkinen make an unscheduled pit stop. The Finnish driver closed on his teammate and, eventually, Coulthard slowed to let him by.

Though it was a fairly straightforward move, it did infuriate a lot of fans and media because it was an act deemed “prejudicial to the interests of competition.”

But that wouldn’t be the only team orders scandal that year.

1998 Belgian Grand Prix

A first-lap pileup at the rainy 1998 Belgian Grand Prix thinned out the field, and leader Michael Schumacher eventually careened into the rear end of Coulthard’s McLaren as the Scot attempted to let Schumacher by.

Suddenly, Jordan driver Damon Hill found himself in the lead with teammate Ralf Schumacher slicing down the gap between them.

And so, Damon Hill hopped on the radio.

“I’m going to put something to you here, and I think you 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. 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.”

A few laps later came the decision. Ralf Schumacher’s engineer, Sam Michael, told his driver that he should not fight for the lead. Hill won the race, and Jordan took its only 1-2 finish in F1 history.

But the Schumachers were furious, to say the least. Irate, Michael Schumacher bought his younger brother out of his Jordan contract and helped him find a seat at Williams where, hopefully, no team-orders scenario would mar the younger man’s success.

More historic scandals in F1 history:

👉 Revealed: Formula 1’s surprising connection to the Great Train Robbery

👉 The scandalous story behind the man who introduced glamour to F1

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix

Who can forget Multi 21? At the second race of the season, polesitter Sebastian Vettel lost out to Red Bull teammate Mark Webber for much of the race, leaving Webber to start building a gap.

But when it came time for pit stops, Red Bull opted to pull Vettel in first. Suddenly, Webber’s undercut was destroyed — but the Australian still held his lead, even after his own final pit stop.

Where Lando Norris ceded his position in the Hungarian Grand Prix to his teammate in 2024, Vettel did the opposite back in 2013. He launched by his teammate with 10 laps to go, leaving Webber furious and muttering “Multi-21” — a phrase that means, effectively “hold position.”

2002 Austrian Grand Prix

Heading into the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher was leading the championship in dominant fashion, and with the help of teammate Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari led the Constructors’ title.

And then something happened. Barrichello took pole position. Then he made a gorgeous start to take a lead that he maintained through two pit stops and two safety car periods. For a driver who had failed to finish the past several races, it must have felt glorious.

Then, just before the finish line, Barrichello lifted. Schumacher passed him. Michael Schumacher took the victory.

The backlash was fierce. Even if he had finished second, Schumacher would have retained a dominant lead in the championship, one that Barrichello would have been hard pressed to counter. It seemed to be a completely pointless call from the team — and fans were irate.

The FIA, too, was angry — so angry, in fact, that it finally issued a ban on team orders that lasted for just under a decade.

2008 Singapore Grand Prix

Renault had been in the throes of a dry spell when it arrived at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, and perhaps driver Fernando Alonso was particularly hungry for a victory that day.

Two laps after an early pit stop on Lap 12, Alonso’s teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed heavily at the exit of Turn 17. The contact brought out a safety car, and pit procedure rules at the time played right into Alonso’s hands. He’d go on to coincidentally win the race that his teammate had fouled.

But when Renault dropped Piquet a year later, the Brazilian hit the headlines: He had been told by Renault to crash in order to best help his teammate. The ensuing investigation tainted the names of men like Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, and Renault was levied with a massive fine while also having its points scrubbed.

In terms of team orders, asking one of your drivers to crash in order to give his teammate a win has to rank pretty high on the list of controversy.

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