Gerhard Berger has scolded Mercedes for apparently imposing team orders during last weekend’s Belgian grand prix.

Shortly before Michael Schumacher passed his teammate Nico Rosberg at Spa-Francorchamps, the younger German was told by the pitwall to conserve fuel.

Former grand prix winner Berger told Servus TV that the position switch was conceived deliberately to give Schumacher a grandstand finish on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his debut.

“It should have been a race and not a commercial shoot,” the Austrian groaned.

Team orders are legal in 2011 but Berger believes that “in the circumstances it is totally wrong for Mercedes to do such strategies”.

“They should be putting more thought into making a winning car,” he said.

Berger also commented on McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who was involved in two crashes last weekend at Spa.

“He is extremely aggressive and the best overtaker in the field, but at times he overdoes it.

“If he was sitting in the Red Bull, he would not have to take so many risks and so he would get into a lot less mischief,” he said.

The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council will consider Ferrari’s team orders breach on 8 September.
For the position switch at Hockenheim last month, the Italian team was fined $100,000 by the stewards for breaking not only the tam order rule 39.1, but also the general guideline about disrepute.

It had been speculated that the disciplinary hearing would be held in Como, Italy, on September 10 — the day of a scheduled Council meeting.

But that would have clashed with Friday practice for the Italian grand prix.

The sport’s governing body has therefore convened a separate meeting two days earlier for the Ferrari matter, in Paris on September 8.

FIA president Jean Todt, implicated in the infamous Austria 2002 team orders controversy, will not chair the meeting; instead it will be headed by the deputy president for sport, Graham Stoker.

Also on Monday, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo referred to some recent “perplexing decisions”.

“But we must look ahead and believe in the fact that today, we are in the fight for the championship,” said the Italian.

“This is the Ferrari I like to see and the one our fans want to see; a team that can fight and deliver the results.”

Like McLaren, Ferrari’s factory shut down for two weeks on Sunday.