Team Orders

Team orders are the two-driver coordination toggles: Stay Behind and Let Pass. They override normal racing AI to prioritise team-level outcomes over individual driver placement.

Both are set per-driver in the race UI (toggle buttons). The AI Team Orders module also fires them automatically in some scenarios.

Stay Behind Teammate

When Stay Behind is enabled on driver A, and driver A is approaching driver B (same team), driver A skips the overtake attempt entirely — no dice roll, no commitment, just hold position.

When it’s useful

• Protecting a 1-2 finish — your lead driver is up front, your second driver is closing; don’t let them swap
• Strategy desync — your driver behind is on Soft, ahead is on Hard, swapping costs the team a position
• Last-lap defending — neither driver should risk contact; lock the order
• Driver behind has reliability concerns — don’t push, finish where you are

When it’s automatic

The AI Team Orders module enables Stay Behind on:

• Late race (last 5 laps) when both drivers are in points and the position swap would be neutral
• Driver behind has just suffered a mistake malus or has overtake cooldown active
• Pressure on the chasing driver is high (≥ 0.6) and they’re about to back off anyway

How it ends

• Toggle off manually — instant
• Driver in front pits — Stay Behind clears (they’re no longer ahead on track)
• Driver behind catches up to side-by-side range — protocol still skips the overtake; cars stay parallel until one cedes via the corner-by-corner resolution

Hard limits

• Only fires for same-team car ahead. A different-team car ahead is fair game.
• If the driver behind has Diva trait (planned), they refuse Stay Behind unless the driver ahead has higher stats.

Let Teammate Pass

When Let Pass is enabled on driver A, and driver B (same team) is behind A, driver A grants a guaranteed free pass — no dice roll, automatic position swap.

When it’s useful

• Letting your faster teammate through in a championship-clinching race
• Strategy aligned — driver behind is on a better tire / fresher pit and should be ahead for the next phase
• Letting a charging recovery through — your lead driver had a bad start and is slower than your second driver currently
• Honouring a pre-race agreement between drivers (race-narrative-wise)

How the free pass works

• The AI completes the swap smoothly — no aggressive overtake commit, no risk of contact
• The defender (you, with Let Pass on) backs off briefly via the existing backing_off mechanism
• The flag auto-clears after the pass completes
• Commentary line fires: “X lets Y through — team orders.”

Hard limits

• Only fires for same-team car behind. A different-team car can’t get a free pass.
• If the defender has Diva trait (planned), they refuse Let Pass.
• The pass takes one corner / straight to complete — not instant.
• 20-second hold interval — once it fires, the flag stays cleared for 20s. Without this hold, the teammate-behind condition would re-evaluate immediately after the swap and re-fire (the swap doesn’t separate them in lap counter terms within the same tick).

Combining the two

Stay Behind on driver A + Let Pass on driver B = forced swap:

• Driver B will let driver A through if A catches up
• But driver A is told to stay behind teammate B

These two cancel out. The effective behaviour is “no overtake, no pass” — which is just “freeze positions” between the two drivers. Useful for strategic stability.

Driver match

The current code respects orders 100% of the time; the trait system (planned) will introduce refusal scenarios.

Pressure / Mistake interaction

A driver under high pressure may forget to comply with team orders — though this is currently not implemented (always complies). When the trait system lands, Hothead drivers may ignore Stay Behind 30% of the time on lap 1.

Race UI

Team order toggles are next to the engine map / push controls per driver. When active, a small badge appears on the driver name strip:

• 🛡 STAY — Stay Behind active
• 🚗 PASS — Let Pass active

Commentary fires when the AI auto-enables one (and again when the order is honoured / cleared).

Strategic uses (real-life parallels)

Race winners

F1 history is full of “team orders that decided the championship” moments. The Undercut lets you replay these:

• Lock a 1-2 with Stay Behind on the chasing driver
• Swap drivers via Let Pass when strategy aligns with a teammate’s stint
• Save the lead car’s tires by letting the strategic-fresher car through

Race anti-patterns

Don’t:

• Use Stay Behind early in the race — too long to enforce, too many things change
• Use Let Pass without a clear strategic reason — gives away track position
• Stack both orders on the same driver — you’re confusing the AI

Quick reference