Team Orders at Ferrari?

[paracletus]

Different strategies, too early to claim that this driver is faster than vettelle.

 

[tajpapa]

It really sucks, first race of the season and they are not even getting podium. WTH?!

Let Vettel and LeClerc battle it out on first race

 

[Peter Hooper]

Brilliant..... the champagne isn't even dry on Bottas's overalls yet...

Look, bottom line is if Lewis needs that bit of floor so much then it simply proves the very obvious point that his speed comes from the Merc....
Stick Lewis in the Williams.... he'll never see the top ten this season.....end of..

Ayrton Senna would not see the top ten in that Williams lol

 

[NikiGouda]

Lets see how long they can keep Leclerc behind Vettel, before they realise he is the faster driver.

Aha, for sure you KNOW he is faster than Vettel, without any doubt, right?
I would not be so confident at this moment. Don't get me wrong, LeClerc is
a huuuge talent, but you better wait with such premature judgements
because it isn't really necessary now and not much more than a personal
bias in my eyes.

 

[GuttsBord]

In my vision, Ferrari ordered Leclerc to slow down his pace, but i don't know if Scuderia expected his declaration after the race. He maybe tried to relativize the order, but confirmed it.

 

[LEDzZzEPP]

According to the pilots themselves, their biggest rival is their teammate, and if you can be ahead of your teammate because you have more pace (are faster), but your team decides to tell you to stay behind .... that stinks

Leclerc could have won his teammate in his first race with Ferrari, it is not a minor fact

 

[Ernie]

Team order in first race of the season .....

 

[Sasha Jednak]

Did Leclerc had engine troubles? Same as Vettel had... Don't see anything bad with this, they said Vettel is No1 and they are going by that. They were on different strategy and couldn't win anything ahead of them. So they decided to keep position (Malaysia 2013?!).
On the other hand, those who need, know what was the pace of both of them, even without looking at final standings.

 

[Michel Bélisle]

Did we get clear evidence, like a radio communication recording, that Leclerc held back due to team orders?

If I was Leclerc, and it was my first race at Ferrari, I would have naturally stayed back without the need for anyone to whisper in my ears to stay back. Under the circumstances, I think it was intelligent for Ferrari to just bag the points that they could and regroup for the next race. They did not have the pace to challenge the Mercs and that was just smart on their part to acknowledge that.

No need to have two teammates challenge each other needlessly and risk having them crash into each other or stress the cars to the point of failure.

 

[Tberg]

Lando, Max and Lance have proved that any number of kids who are in lower formula can get into an F1 car and do well, the fact Merc opted for an average driver like Bottas rather than a young gun is telling...

Some logic you have there...

Let's look at last years top3 GP2 and see where they're at this year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIA_Formula_2_Championship

And believe it or not, Lance won the F3, so the only one left without a history of winning lower formula classes is Max. Well, someone with knowledge saw something in him and he took the chance when he got it. And won the first F1 race he ran when he got upgraded to RB.

 

[NikiGouda]

Did we get clear evidence, like a radio communication recording, that Leclerc held back due to team orders?

Yes Michel, that's a fact. I hate team orders but they are part of the
game unfortunately. But slowly i get the impression that whatever Ferrari
is doing, they can only doing it wrong, at least in the eyes of the media
and some others. Surely it's not nice to stay behind your team mate when
you are (during the second half of the race because of an early pitstop of
Vettel and possibly "other" reasons) faster than him, but i have NO doubt
that LeClerc has not any problem with that at this point in his career given
that he knew it because ferrari was crystal clear regarding the hierarchy
since the preseason. So it's not a big problem at all despite some want to
make it look like this.

 

[Edison5do]

They repeated "Increase the gap at the front" so many times that Charles had to ask them "Is he slowing down or what, I'm already so slow". Its painful to hear.

Source:

 

[Michel Bélisle]

They repeated "Increase the gap at the front" so many times that Charles had to ask them "Is he slowing down or what, I'm already so slow". Its painful to hear.

Source:

That was painful to hear. Being smart and preventing teammates from colliding in each other is one thing but this is entirely something else. Based on the recording, Leclerc could have gone ahead and challenge Verstappen. I am dejected.