I'm sure team orders have been part of F1 since its inception. And contrary to popular beliefs and biases, Ferrari is not the first and only team doing this. Other teams are guilty as well and its just they dont get much flak for doing so.
For example, In the '97 Belgian GP, Ralf Schumacher was ordered to move over and let Damon Hill take the first win for Jordan (current Midland-Spyker) in its history. In the '99 Hockenheim GP, Ferrari's sub driver Mika Salo was asked to let teammate, Eddie Irvine, take the win to increase Irvine's chance of winning the championship against the Mclarens. In the '99 Malaysian GP, fresh from a serious accident that took him off the racing track for months, M. Schumacher was ordered to relinquish first place to let Eddie Irvine take the win and let him close the gap bet. the Mclarens. David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen have done similar things also. There are so much more! Bottomline: Everyone is guilty and no one is a "saint". Everyone has dipped their hands in the cookie jar, so no big deal. Its just it seems Ferrari and Schumacher have become lightning rods of sorts for people who seem to have an inherent abhorment for the all success and achievements they have garnered.
There are no specific rules which explicitly prohibits the use of team orders and it is really upto each team which road they want to go down to. No need to be an apologist for Renault and Alonso bec. they are already quite saintly, sinless and have a "do-no-evil" image, based on your previous posts.
Whether or not, any team wishes to utilize the option of a team order or not is really up to them and there are probably more complex reasons why they elect to do so. At times, it is not something that is easily understandable based on what we see on the surface or based on our presumptions and biases.





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