Mark Hughes: Why McLaren team orders brought painful F1 flashback for Coulthard

In his commentary role for the BBC at Monza last weekend, David Coulthard jokingly said he was still receiving therapy in the aftermath of the two victories he surrendered to team-mate Mika Häkkinen in 1997 and ’98.

The resonance with events of Sunday was obvious as McLaren, just as in Jerez ’97 and Adelaide ’98, asked one of its drivers (Oscar Piastri) to let the other (Lando Norris) by to correct a misfortune suffered earlier in the race not of Norris’s doing.

Manipulating the result within a team to correct outside events is a tricky subject and this time around has created far more controversy than was the case in the ‘90s. Fans seem to have a stronger opinion about it – or at least have in social media the means to express those opinions to a wider public.

Obviously, luck is just part of racing. When racing against a driver of another team, it’s just one of those things if you lose the race to him because there was a problem at your pitstop. But with two drivers on the same team? If they are close enough together that it’s within the team’s grasp to restore the merited order before luck intervened? There is always a fault line between a driver’s interests and those of the team and circumstances such as this can prise that line apart. Which can have negative consequences on the relationship and future prospects. It is not a clear-cut open/shut case of what the team ‘should’ do. Nor is it obvious how the driver asked to let his team-mate through should respond. Especially when he’s fighting for the world title with that team-mate.

The Jerez ’97 incident wasn’t about a McLaren driver fighting for the title, though. As the final round, it was about the showdown for the crown between Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher and Williams’ Jacques Villeneuve. Coulthard and Häkkinen had merely starring walk-on parts to play in that drama and their controversy was wrapped up inside that of the title combatants. An informal pre-race conversation between Frank Williams and McLaren’s Ron Dennis resulted in a loose agreement whereby if the McLaren drivers were in a position to help Villeneuve, they would. And if, later in the race, Villeneuve no longer needed to win it to seal the title, he might help the McLaren drivers if they were in position to be helped.

This would not be permitted today. In fact, the sporting regulation forbidding such collusion between teams was put in place as a direct result of this race. But it played out with a situation very much as had been discussed. Schumacher had led from the start, Villeneuve had to pass team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen to get up to second and by the time he’d done so, Schumacher was over 4sec up the road. The McLarens were running fourth and fifth, Häkkinen a few seconds ahead of Coulthard.

As first Schumacher then Villeneuve made their first pitstops, Frentzen in the lead backed up the pack, lapping around 2sec off the pace. This enabled Villeneuve to close up on Schumacher’s tail, wiping out his earlier deficit. It also meant that Häkkinen – in not attacking Frentzen – lost the advantage he’d had over Coulthard, who was now right with him. After Frentzen and the McLarens pitted, Coulthard was now ahead of Häkkinen. Not on merit but simply because the shenanigans ahead had disadvantaged Häkkinen.

Exiting from his second stop a lap after Schumacher had done the same, Villeneuve made his dive down the inside of the Ferrari from a long way back, and Schumacher made his infamous ‘defence’, which left the Ferrari beached in the gravel and Villeneuve still running, albeit with a damaged car. Villeneuve now needed to score just one point to take the title.

Into the closing stages and leading the race, Villeneuve was reminded by his engineer Jock Clear he’d agreed to repay McLaren’s favour if he was in position to do so – which he now was. Jacques maintained radio silence and initially showed no sign of pulling aside. Meanwhile, a similar discussion was ongoing on the McLaren radios. Coulthard was being asked to surrender second position to Häkkinen, to correct the earlier manipulation. But in the knowledge that the second place would likely become first – so long as Villeneuve stuck to the agreement.

Agreements are far easier to arrive at out of the car than to keep when inside. It’s a very different world in there. The person changes. Coulthard was wrestling with himself just as much as was Villeneuve.

“I’d been asked to let Mika pass, which was never discussed,” DC explained to Motor Sport in 2021, “so I declined that invitation for a few laps. They told me I was compromising my place in the team. I took that to mean I’d be fired – so I moved over.”

Coulthard reluctantly pulled aside a lap before Villeneuve did the same – and like that Häkkinen took the first grand prix victory of his career, with Villeneuve also letting his friend Coulthard by for second.