While Ferrari's particular team order situation hogged the limelight at the Miami Grand Prix, Williams navigated an arguably bigger controversy - as one of its drivers felt short-changed by the execution of team strategy.
Carlos Sainz indicated after the race that he was made to "feel stupid" after having been led to believe that he and team-mate Alex Albon have been instructed not to fight - only to be overtaken by Albon.
The key event unfolded on lap 14, when Albon overtook Sainz - after the pair of them had already exchanged positions a couple of times earlier in the race.
Two laps prior, with Albon bearing down on him, Sainz told Williams: "Let's go forward guys, we're compromising the race here, let's get into a rhythm."
He then said "I could do with a bit of help from Alex" and was told by race engineer Gaetan Jego that Albon "got the call" - which was then immediately followed by Albon making the move for sixth place.
"You told me he's been told [to stay behind]," Sainz objected on team radio, before being told to "stay within DRS" and "let's be the bigger one".
Sainz's post-race frustration
"The team told us that we were going to freeze positions, then... I don't know if he got the message or not but basically he overtook me back," Sainz relayed after the race.
Prodded about it further, Sainz insisted initially that he wasn't frustrated - but did make a reference to his own effort to keep Albon within DRS range in the preceding Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which helped protect Sainz and Albon's positions versus Isack Hadjar's Racing Bulls car.
"If I'm told on the radio that I'm not going to be attacked and we're going to push together, to be overtaken as a driver you feel stupid, because you feel powerless, you're playing the good guy - the same way that I played the good guy in Jeddah - and you get overtaken, and you look completely stupid.
"But it's the way it goes, we'll talk about it, I'm sure we'll come out of it better as a team and we will move on."
So what happened?
The available broadcast feeds do not make it possible to establish the exact timing of messages, but Albon's radio feed reconstructs the situation well.
"It was most probably in the exact moment of that message was when I overtook him," Albon explained afterwards. "I think if we stayed together a little bit longer, then I would've been told that [to stay back] - but for that time we were still free to race. I think it was just a delay between the two cars."
In truth, Albon was told to stay behind, but the instruction was immediately reversed.
On the run to Turn 11, just as Sainz was being told that Albon had received his instruction, Albon was told by race engineer James Urwin: "Right, Alex, we're managing a water pressure issue with you, we need to maintain a gap of at least a second to the car ahead."
But Albon quickly pointed out that he was "about to overtake" Sainz with DRS on that run to Turn 11, so was told by Urwin: "OK, crack on then."
Albon stayed ahead of Sainz from then on, and wound up picking off the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli to secure a fifth-place finish - while Sainz lost out in a close battle to the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to end up ninth.
The collision before
Remarkably, before the team order drama there had already been a collsion that very nearly put one or both drivers out of the race.
The Turns 1-2 squabble between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris at the start led to Sainz being slowed significantly by Norris rejoining the track, which then triggered a Turn 3 contact between the two Williams cars, Sainz's front left impacting against Albon's rear right.
Sainz felt the car was damaged from there on - and was also hamstrung by "some operational mistakes" that meant he ran a used tyre in the first stint.
But he had overtaken Albon back after that impact, as Albon struggled to get into a rhythm early, fearing damage of his own after the contact, which was "upsetting my focus a little bit".
More from Miami
Sainz summoned twice by F1 stewards after Miami GP
'We did a good job' - Ferrari insists it got Miami team orders right
Winners and losers from F1's 2025 Miami Grand Prix
McLaren destroys F1 rivals in Miami GP as Piastri wins again
That hesitation was quickly overcome, and the aforementioned water pressure issue while behind Sainz "resolved itself in clean air".
And Albon hinted that he felt his race result was vindication of how the team order situation played out. "We had really strong pace on my side of the garage. We proved that we were strong."
