Winning the F1 Championship

Although every driver wants to win races, the aim for all of them is to go for World Championship glory. That is why, at various points of the season, drivers are willing to take it steady to guarantee the points for second place rather than go all out for victory and risk coming away with a dented car and no points at all.
In the past, some drivers would be helped by their team mates to make sure that they built up as big a lead as possible in the World Championship. Sometimes, for example, a team mate in the lead would pull over to make sure that the other team mate won. Or a team mate with the faster car would hold back and defend second place from a rival to ensure that his team mate with the slower car took the victory. These pre-arranged agreements to let one fellow win were called team orders.
From the start of the 2003 season, however, team orders were banned in the sport. This ban was the result of a series of controversies in the 2002 World Championship when the Ferrari team used team orders even though it was absolutely dominant and not really threatened by any other team. Such a use of team orders took away much of the drama of the sport, and the sport’s rulers felt that it contributed to a falling interest in Formula One – even though the Ferrari team was clearly within its rights to do what it wanted on the track.