Mika Hakkinen warns F1 teams risk being ‘crucified’ by fans over team orders

Mika Hakkinen has warned the F1 teams that they risk being crucified if they use team orders, even in the face of emotional pressure such as what Lewis Hamilton laid on Ferrari in Zandvoort.

As Mercedes’ early-season dominance waned, with Hamilton the first to break his former team’s stranglehold at a grand prix with a victory in Barcelona, what once looked to be a likely Mercedes 1-2 in the drivers’ standings has been cast into doubt.

Mika Hakkinen warns F1 teams over controversial team orders

At the top of the standings, three drivers are looking to make history.

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli is seeking a first world title and the record for the youngest-ever F1 world champion. His teammate George Russell is also chasing his maiden title, while behind them, Hamilton wants that record-breaking eighth crown.

Further back, other stories are waiting to be written as Lando Norris looks to defend the title, Charles Leclerc wants his first, and Max Verstappen could make history by overturning the biggest deficit ever to win the championship.

The stories, though, may involve controversy through team orders. Or the lack thereof.

That came to the fore at the Dutch Grand Prix, where Mercedes ordered Russell to move aside for Antonelli, citing an unnecessary fight given the disparity in tyre life, while Ferrari, by contrast, did not react to Hamilton’s call to pass Leclerc.

Hamilton was not happy, telling Ferrari it was a “great way of wasting time guys, good job”, before later claiming that the team was “not unlucky”, rather its indecisiveness had “cost” him a podium.

But while double F1 world champion Hakkinen understands Hamilton’s frustrations, he conceded that his years out of the cockpit have highlighted the disparity in information between the driver and the team.

“I think what Lewis experienced in Zandvoort, it was explained from the team why it happened,” the Finn told Sky Sports.

“Emotions with Lewis’ experience was absolutely normal. Maybe it wasn’t only emotion, just also common sense. ‘We can score more points if you let me overtake!’

“But nowadays when I look at grand prix racing from the outside, when I’m in the paddock, it’s different. You see much more, you get much more information on what’s happening.

“The drivers are getting only a very tiny percentage of the information we get on TV, so when they are following another car and it doesn’t let them overtake, they don’t have the information and the calculations that the team have, so then very often you get these kind of reactions from the drivers, which is very normal.”

F1 teams, he warned, should only use team orders if there is no other option as they face being vilified by the fanbase of the driver told to give up a position.

“Which team is going to do this kind of change and what are the arguments they are going to give and tell the fans?” he said.

“This is going to be an important factor.

“All these drivers have a huge fanbase these days in the world, and if the team is going to decide one day that this driver is going to be number two, the fans are going to crucify this team.

“So you have to be very careful these days how you are activating these kinds of team orders.”

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He added: “The fanbase has changed in Formula 1; the generation is different than in my time.

“When I was racing against Michael Schumacher when he was at Ferrari, they started doing team orders already at the first race of the season.

“It was very obvious that if one driver is very strong in a team and started to win races and score points, the team is very much aware that if they want to win the world championship, they need to support this one driver 100 per cent.

“That’s what Michael Schumacher was able to manage to do with Ferrari when he was racing there.

“We had a little bit of a different philosophy at McLaren. We wanted to give both drivers the same opportunity until the points were at a point that one couldn’t catch the other; then the team-mate has to start supporting the leading driver. That was a common-sense operation.

“Now the teams want to win the Drivers’ Championship and the Constructors’ Championship, they want to win both. So it’s important that both drivers are getting maximum performance all the time in every race.”

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