In motor racing, team orders is a motorsport term for the practice of teams issuing instructions to drivers to deviate from the normal practice of racing against each other as they would against other teams' drivers. This can be accomplished either in advance, simply by establishing a pecking order between the two drivers within the team, or instructing a driver to let his teammate overtake or to hold position without the risk of collision.
This is generally done when one driver is behind in a particular race but ahead overall in a championship season. The team will then order their drivers to rearrange themselves on the track so as to give more championship points to the driver who is ahead in the championship. Another reason for team orders is where both drivers are in a position far ahead of the field, being all but assured of the win. Team orders are issued to prevent the drivers from racing each other; the aim is to have them drive cautiously to save fuel, reduce the chance of mechanical problems, and avoid a collision. This has happened on countless occasions in the history of the sport, sometimes causing great acrimony between the team and the second-placed driver.
Start and park is a variation on the team orders theme used in NASCAR.
Damon Hill: I'm going to put something to you here, and I think you'd better listen to this.
If we race, if we two race, we could end up with nothing, so it's up to Eddie (Jordan).
If we don't race each other, we've got an opportunity to get a first and second, it's your choice.
Read more about Team Orders: Team Orders in F1
Famous quotes containing the words team and/or orders:
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He was thoughtful and grave—but the orders he gave
Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried “Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!”
What on earth was the helmsman to do?”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)