Sergio Perez, Force India, Red Bull Ring, 2018

Perez doesn’t understand Force India team orders

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In the round-up: Sergio Perez says he doesn’t understand why Force India told its drivers to switch places.

What they say

I am very pleased with my performance today. I started 16th, standing here today P7, it’s a massive achievement, with Esteban P6.

I don’t know what happened with the decision, it’s something we’ll have to go back and see why I had to give back the position.

But anyway I’m very pleased for all the effort the team has done. Very happy we have out-scored Renaunt. We are just closing up the gap.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Tim has some words of praise for someone who had a bad day yesterday:

I thought James Vowles taking accountability live on air took a lot of courage and was very impressive (of course would have been more impressive if he hadn’t needed to do so in the first place).

He knew Hamilton would have been fuming and did what he could to alleviate this in the heat of the moment to try and get him to refocus. That to me shows great professionalism despite how some people might see it as humiliating.
Tim (@Gusty)

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On this day in F1

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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26 comments on “Perez doesn’t understand Force India team orders”

  1. Vettel fan 17 (@)
    2nd July 2018, 0:30

    +1 to the COTD. Not many people, let alone f1 team strategist, would be able to do something like that.

    1. That CoTD was wrong, James coming on the radio must be the most ridiculous thing I have seen in F1 for a while, the strategist having to massage the drivers ego to get him racing.
      How many times this season alone has Ferrari put Vettel on the wrong strategy or other teams they sort it out after the race.
      For a driver to want to throw in the towel immediately defies logic.

      1. petebaldwin (@)
        2nd July 2018, 19:40

        He doesn’t have many but it’s a weakness of Hamilton’s. When things go wrong and he finds himself behind mid-race, he seems to lose some of his fight.

        I think it was clever to have him speak on the radio and calm Hamilton down – they know their driver’s weaknesses and are doing what they can to mitigate them.

  2. Rick Lopez (@viscountviktor)
    2nd July 2018, 1:06

    Would be hell to work with Hamilton. Have to suck up to him all the time. Whiny.

    1. The team shafted him, I think that entitles you to be slightly annoyed in a situation like that

      1. Matteo (@m-bagattini)
        2nd July 2018, 10:19

        @thebullwhipper you win and lose together. Hamilton is an amazing driver and rarely makes mistakes: but he’s the first to point the finger at his team when something doesn’t work.

    2. Agreed, everyone would have known they messed up already and having him carry on like they are all only there for his benefit was embarassing. Typically cringeworthy in truth.

    3. @viscountviktor, you will find that pretty much every single driver on the grid has ranted at their engineers, and Hamilton’s complaints were rather tame compared to some.

      After all, when he was driving for Sauber a few years ago, there was one race where Hulkenberg just started ranting at the team about how bad the car was, whilst Vettel’s famous foul mouthed rant on the radio a few years ago at Whiting is well known too, as are his frequent complaints about backmarkers. Alonso’s frequent verbal outbursts over the radio, from his “GP2 engine” comments to some of his scathing comments about his fellow drivers on the radio, are frequently played out on the TV broadcasts, whilst Kimi’s been rather more fiery in the cockpit and not been adverse at shouting at his engineers when he’s felt that he’s been screwed over too. Even your listed favourite, Massa, was well known for being rather grumpy and vocal on the radio when he was upset and being rather more bellicose than he might have appeared outside of the cockpit.

      Some historical figures were even worse – Frentzen might have had a reputation out of the cockpit for being an easy going man, but his mechanics have said that, inside the cockpit, he could be incredibly abusive – to the point where, in one Monaco GP, the mechanics suspected that Frentzen was so angry with the team that he either lost control because he was more focussed on shouting abuse at his team rather than driving, or that he even deliberately crashed out of the race just to spite his team.

      1. @anon I couldn’t agree more with you.

        1. Matteo (@m-bagattini)
          2nd July 2018, 10:23

          @jerejj / anon: it is true, but we should consider that ranting against your team or ranting with your team are two different things. “Come on these backmarkers need to move” is different, even when filled with f-words, from “You made a mistake and now I’m fourth”.

    4. You don’t come to and survive in F1 without being an alpha. I think rants are a part of that win at any cost attitude they need.

      1. Please, none of these overgrown boys who’ve been brought up with bags of cash in a bubble are anywhere near being alpha!

  3. Ricardo’s B-day
    Even the Cake candles don’t work.

  4. COTD +1, in a world where dodging responsibility is the norm, James did well to get it done.

  5. Ju88sy (@)
    2nd July 2018, 7:13

    @jureo Nicely put, along with COTD, rather than humiliation it achieves the exact opposite requiring courage and inner strength to publicly accept responsibility. It diffused the situation, allowing the team to move on. A pertinent lesson for us individually and for society!

    1. Offcorse drivers are total spoiled brats. Enter Hamitlon emo-raging over the team mistake. It is easy to judge him on his behavior.

      But most drivers tend to be spoiled brats especially really good ones like Hamilton, emotions running high while the helmet is down.

  6. Woo I think that was my first or maybe second time commenting here and I got COTD… Thanks :-)

    1. Very well-deserved COTD, and a mature take on the situation, @gusty

      Keep the good comments coming!

  7. ColdFly (@)
    2nd July 2018, 8:01

    What we all missed due to the ‘not pitting’ drama is that the VSC worked wonders.
    They keep the VSC lit as shortly as possible and rush the stranded car away; I think it was just over a lap this time (< 2minutes).
    This is so much better than a mechanical SC which they keep on for up to 5 laps even for a minor incident (driving out, collecting cars, unlapping cars, 'SC in this lap').

    1. But i rather see a fixed speed like a pits one so noone can get advantage. But they are short which i like.

  8. I agree with both the COTD as well as Nate Saunders concerning his tweet.

  9. Don’t know why Perez is acting so disillusioned with the team order. I remember they asked Ocon to let Perez through (probably because Perez on SS was capable of chasing down the car in front). After he failed to do so, they reversed positions again. Seems fairly standard. Maybe Perez should have raced Ocon for the position if he wanted to finish in front.

    1. YEah I’m a bit surprised. He can’t pretend he passed Ocon so easily on his own…

    2. I think Perez would pass Ocon without the team order, he was lapping faster than Esteban, and after the team order he gained at leasts 5.5 secs. to Esteban, is not that Ocon was right behind his wing.

      1. I too believe it is normal Team orders and no harm in switching back. F1 website has an article on Force I and they are actually pleased on the strategy and how drivers understood and behaved, so I don’t know from where Checo’s comments were picked up.
        And I also agree with Pire Checo was faster than Ocon. In fact I do believe that prior to the pass Ocon hit on the brakes earlier and hard to make it obvious it was a Team order and not a natural race pass, even though he would’ve been passed that or the next lap easily with or without Team orders.
        Either way it looks embarrassing that your Team mate has to wait for you 6 seconds almost at the start/finish line for you to pass him and finish ahead.
        All in all a good result for the Team and it was nice to see that they didn’t clash this time.

  10. I love the post race comments by readers, I can’t believe so & so is being a cry baby. These same folks get mad when Grandma is slow off the light and would likely loose their cookies if their boss at work did something stupid and cost them a bonus.

    Give the drivers a break, they are mentally on a knife edge of extreme performance and I think the majority of their reactions are quite calm compared to how most people would react in a similar scenario. If I had been Hamilton it would have been a lot more unhappy.

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