Thursday October 31st, 2002

Former Swiss Formula One driver Marc Surer believes the FIA's new ban on team orders is pointless - because the new points system in Formula One will discourage position-swapping shenanigans anyway.

Team orders have created controversy throughout this season as Ferrari have manipulated results to ensure their drivers, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello claimed first and second in the title race.

Surer, currently a commentator for Swiss television and also head of the competitions department at BMW, believes the rules changes will hardly change anything.

"Forbidding team orders is not going to change things an awful lot," Surer told Central European News. "Ferrari only did it twice last season and now that doing it would only mean a two-point loss instead of four for a driver.

"It's probably not even worth it anymore. If you get only two points more for coming first, why risk anything? I would go for second. They will all drive one after the other and wait for their rivals' mistakes. No risk and no fun at all."

Surer also believes that because the new points system, which runs 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1, does not reward a winner many more points than a man who comes second, the Championship winner could end up never winning a race.

"That would be a horror scenario," he said.

Published at 16:49:42 GMT