Question about 2002 Austrian F1 Grand Prix

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Guys, who remembers this?



Wouldn't this be considered to be the equivalent of match fixing? I mean of people bet on Barrichello to win, they would've lost?

 

[Parra]

Betting doesn't come into it. The team is out to win the constructor title and the individual driver title. There was a bit of outrage when teams did this position swap so blatantly like this. Mclaren did something similar in '98 and then there is the controversy when drivers don't follow team orders - look up multi 2-1 and RedBull 2010. A lot of times teams will try and be more subtle - for example Bottas being told that Lewis is faster and on a different strategy so let him by. In reality - just team orders. It would be considered fixing if any other team or driver got involved with this. Interesting that Schumacher let Barrichello past later in the season for a win, it was so blatant even Barichello cringed.

Go back further and it was considered sportsmanship to even give the team leader a team mates car mid race. Two famous examples of this were Fangio and also Brock at Bathurst. All within the rules and accepted without question at the time.