© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes’ former Motorsport Strategy Director James Vowles reveals he was the person behind the team’s ‘Rules of Engagment’ document, which defines how team-mates should race each other.
In recent years there has been a lot of talk about Mercedes’ ‘Rules of Engagment’ document, which the team created to prevent on-track incidents between team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who were involved in a fierce title fight at the time.
Mercedes drivers are still required to respect these rules when they encounter each other on the track.
The team’s former Motorsport Strategy Director and current Williams Team Principal James Vowles reveals he was the person who created the document.
“Both of the drivers in 2014, Nico and Lewis, knew it was going to be one of those two winning the year,” Vowels said on the ‘High Performance Podcast’.
“They knew before we turned the first wheel at the first race.
“I constructed a document which created some very clear ‘How we are going to work with each other, how we will fight each other’, and at the time it was called ‘Rules of Engagment’, but changed to something less military further down the line.
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“That whole first page was about being a sportsman. To explain it, you can win a world championship, but if you’ve done something unsportsmanlike, you will regret it for the rest of your life. It will be sullied, it won’t be pure.
“We want to win things by doing things better than everyone else.
“Michael [Schumacher] was an incredible man, but he’s still marred by 1997. I didn’t want to be remembered like that, I wanted to be remembered for being dominant.
“Within these rules, the fastest driver over 20 races will win and we’ll give you each equal opportunities.
“And they bought into it,” the Briton concluded.
