When Ferrari team orders decision triggered furious fan response

The 2002 Austrian Grand Prix proved to be a watershed moment in Formula 1, as one action both changed the course of the race result and triggered an immediate fan backlash.

This race is one of the most controversial in the sport’s history; not because of the on-track action, but how the Ferrari pit wall decided the outcome of proceedings.

2002 Austrian Grand Prix: Dominant Ferrari’s darkest cloud?

In the early stages of the season, everything was going swimmingly for Michael Schumacher.

He won four of the first five races and took a third-place finish in Malaysia in a near-perfect start to 2002, with the possibility before him of achieving a slice of Formula 1 history.

Only Juan Manuel Fangio before him had ever been a five-time World Champion and, having won the title for Ferrari in 2000 and 2001, Schumacher was not only chasing that landmark, but the chance to become the first driver to win three titles while driving for Ferrari.

Already holding a commanding Number 1 status within the Scuderia, he was set to line up third on the grid at the A1 Ring, now known as the Red Bull Ring, in Austria.

Before the race, Schumacher led the championship on 44 points, just over two full race wins clear of Juan Pablo Montoya at this early stage of the season. But Ferrari’s unquenched desire for success backfired at the chequered flag.

On the other side of the Ferrari garage, Rubens Barrichello had been in commanding form in qualifying, out-pacing Williams’ Ralf Schumacher to pole by almost three tenths, and was six tenths clear of his Ferrari colleague in third.

At the race start, Barrichello got off the line quickly, holding the lead from Michael Schumacher, who leapfrogged his brother into second by the first corner.

The Brazilian was able to hold Schumacher at arm’s length during the first stint, with the pair pitting in a double-stack for Ferrari under Safety Car conditions when the BAR of Olivier Panis had an engine seizure on the start/finish straight.

After the second Safety Car was deployed, following a massive accident, when Nick Heidfeld’s Sauber took to the grass and careered backwards at high speed, side-swiping Takuma Sato in the Jordan, Michael Schumacher was eventually able to battle back past his brother again for second place ahead of his second pit stop.

Barrichello still held a comfortable four-second lead once the pit stops played out, however, but there would be a sting in the tail.

In what he would later describe in a 2012 interview as “eight laps of war,” Barrichello was instructed to move aside and hand his Ferrari team-mate the win.

The Brazilian was reluctant to do so, claiming that he was “screaming” on team radio in protest, losing his temper in a rare act for him.

Even though he had recently signed a new Ferrari deal, he revealed a “threat” had come his way about obey team orders.

He added: “I cannot tell you what they said, but it was a form of threat that made me think about re-thinking my life, because the great joy for me was driving.”

Sure enough, while Schumacher was setting multiple fastest laps in the race in the closing stages, Barrichello’s pace dipped by a few tenths per lap, putting Schumacher to within 1.1 seconds of his team-mate come the final lap.

Still, Barrichello held a lead of eight tenths heading into the final two corners, before the Brazilian noticeably slowed before the finish line, with Schumacher edging just ahead as the chequered flag waved.

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What was the reaction to Ferrari’s team order controversy?

Loud boos rained down from the grandstands as Schumacher climbed out of his car, the reigning World Champion not celebrating a victory that had effectively been handed to him by his team.

The pair exchanged words in parc fermé, before Schumacher took to the podium and tried to push his team-mate onto the top step of the podium. Uncomfortably, Barrichello occupied the top step of the podium as the German national anthem rang out.

Schumacher then joined his team-mate on the top step as the Italian national anthem played, speaking to Barrichello during the anthem’s playing, before handing him the winner’s trophy.

In the aftermath, Ferrari was handed a huge fine for breaching the FIA’s podium protocol, with the team and its drivers ordered to the FIA World Motor Sport Council in the days afterwards to explain their actions.

Later that season, Schumacher slowed to the finish of the United States Grand Prix in what looked to be a formation finish for the Ferrari drivers, Barrichello crossing the line just before him. This was taken by many to be Schumacher’s ‘repayment’ for Barrichello’s lost glory in Austria.

How did Ferrari and its drivers react to the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix?

Both drivers expressed their displeasure at how the race unfolded, though Barrichello managed to remain magnanimous in the moment.

He said in the post-race press conference: “I think it’s a team decision. I just signed a two-year contract with them, and I thought I should have respect.

“I’m going through a very good time in my life. I’m becoming a better person, a better driver, so there’s no point in arguing. I think my determination will take me to a lot more wins, so that’s the way I see it.

“I think it’s we saw it. Michael gave me the trophy, the trophy I take home today, and so I’m happy for that.”

A similar moment had happened between the two drivers the previous year, with Schumacher able to get past his team-mate for a podium position in Austria in 2001, but the German was unimpressed at how that particular situation was handled.

“As Rubens pointed out, it was a team decision,” he said.

“Last year, I sort of was involved in the situation, because I felt the championship was much more tight than it was this year.

“This year, I didn’t even think about this, and before the race, I said, ‘I don’t believe there’s going to be a team strategy involved’, and suddenly they told me that he would move over.

“I’m not very pleased about it either. I think neither of us is, honestly, but then we have to look what is the team’s ambitions, and the team’s ambition is to win the championship, and you have to secure this, because you never know what is going to happen in the next races.”

After thanking his team-mate for playing the team game, Schumacher added: “The team is investing a lot of money for one sort of target, and imagine in the end it would be not enough by this amount of points. How stupid would we look?

“We have always had this philosophy. I think it is very known to everybody that this is the philosophy. It’s within the sport, some people may like it, some may not like it.

“As I said today, I felt a little bit sorry as well, and not really in favour of it, but then you never know what [will] happen in the end.

“I’m sure the way Rubens drove today, he has a lot of opportunities to secure victories this year and I told him on the podium, I hope that the championship is soon finished that we can go for real racing, and I’m sure he’s going to win lots of races.”

Team principal Jean Todt admitted years later that the incident should not have occurred, though acknowledged that the “regret” he would have felt at Schumacher losing the title would have outweighed that of his intervention in Spielberg.

“I shouldn’t have said anything to [Barrichello],” Todt said in a 2010 interview with Italian publication La Stampa. “We agreed beforehand: ‘If you’re in front after the pit stop you have to let Schumacher pass without making a mess.’ He agreed: after all, a driver is paid to accept certain decisions.

“Instead he stayed in front. I called him 50 times and repeated it clearly: he got out of the way at the last corner, the public booed, Schumi gave him first place at the podium ceremony and Ferrari was fined $500,000 for the breach of protocol’.

“[I feel] repented, because with hindsight it could have been avoided: Schumacher would still have won the championship. But I would have regretted it more if I had lost the title by a couple of points.”

How did Formula 1 react to the Austria 2002 controversy?

At the end of the 2002 season, following fan consultation as well as an FIA working group, the governing body decided to ban team orders that “influenced the outcome of a race result” from the 2003 season.

There are famous examples of team orders issued covertly coming to light in the subsequent seasons, such as the 2008 ‘Crashgate’ scandal in which Renault’s Nelson Piquet Jr was instructed to crash out of the race, which in turn helped Fernando Alonso take victory.

In 2010, Alonso, now at Ferrari, was allowed past team-mate Felipe Massa after a not-so-subtle message from race engineer Rob Smedley on the pit wall, who told Massa clearly: “Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?”

Though the team denied the accusation, Ferrari was issued a $100,000 fine as a result of that use of team orders, but the practice would be allowed back into the sport for the start of the 2011 season.