Brawn wants clarification of team orders

Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn believes the ban on team orders is too vague and more discussion is needed to clarify the situation. The F1 Commission, made up of the FIA and team bosses, banned team orders that affect the outcome of a race in November last year. Ferrari has become notorious for its blatant use of team orders and the ban was a result of the events at the Austrian Grand Prix, and later Indianapolis, where crowds booed and jeered Ferrari's antics.

"I think there's still some discussion to go on about what is meant by team orders," Brawn told ITV-F1. "Clearly what happened in Austria is what this rule is aimed at but it has to be considered in lots of different situations. You have a driver and he has a brake problem and you have to tell him to back off and then the other driver overtakes - What's that perceived as? Is it perceived as team orders or is it perceived as a logical approach to the race?"

"We understand that there cannot be a repeat of what happened in Austria but we have to careful that more normal situations don't create controversy because it's a very broad statement."

There has been much speculation about how exactly the FIA plans to police team orders, how it can be sure when a team might be using the strategy. Brawn thinks careful handling of the situation is required: "I think it still has to be discussed how it is going to be applied. What we don't want to do is make it subversive, we don't want to drive it underground."

"We don't want to have a situation where you have bi-directional telemetry where you press a button to blow up the driver's engine! We don't want any of that, that's got to be avoided. We don't want the media to have the perception that that sort of thing is going on so it has to be handled very carefully."

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