Leading drivers defend team tactics

World Touring Car Championship front runners Yvan Muller and Augusto Farfus have both defended the use of team tactics in the WTCC, and motorsport as a whole.
“Strategy is part of the race, there is no problem, the rules say you can do it, so why not do it?” said Muller to The Sun.

Muller, the 2008 drivers champion, said that from the season outset everyone is equal, and everyone has the chance to make their mark on the title race.

Nevertheless, one stronger driver will emerge, and the team will naturally move to focus their attentions on that one driver.

Farfus won the second race at Brands Hatch in July, despite being followed closely by his clearly faster BMW team mate Jörg Müller. This obvious use of tactics led to a number of fans voicing their disapproval, and many feeling that they hadn’t been able to see a race, and instead were presented with a formation finish.

Yvan Muller and Farfus both vehemently denied that it was ruining the spectacle of the races, with Muller referring to the use of team tactics in other sporting disciplines, notably the Tour de France. Muller said “12 guys are running for one, and everyone thinks that is normal, so why can’t we do it in motorsport?”.

This is the latest in a long line of motorsport related controversies regarding team tactics.

Formula 1 has seen tactics employed on numerous occasions. One of the most significant moments being at the Austrian Grand Prix in 2002. Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello had comfortably led his more illustrious team mate, Michael Schumacher, through the entire race. However, as Barrichello neared the chequered flag, he was instructed to move aside and let the German triumph.

The World Rally Championship regularly sees tactics employed, with recent seasons seeing many cases of drivers slowing at the end of the day, to allow for a better road position on the next day.

One series which firmly rules out the use of tactics is the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. At the Zandvoort round of the current season, some Audi drivers were found to have profited from the use of tactics, and duly excluded from the results.

Throughout the race a number of overtaking manoeuvres were made against other Audi cars, where a combination of telemetry and video footage were used to identify that no resistance was offered to the moves, and were thus deemed as tactical.