Going into Brazil, the penultimate race, there was a lot of politicking going on. Logically, Mark had a better chance of winning the drivers’ championship, and therefore Mark’s camp felt that team orders should be invoked: e.g. if the order was Sebastian first and Mark second, we should reverse it to allow Mark to win and keep his championship hopes alive, because Sebastian was too far back to be in with a realistic shout at winning it. Sebastian, of course, had other ideas. He was still in with a mathematical chance of winning and thus wanted to keep racing as competitively as possible.
