Webber plays down impact of team orders 'return'

Mark Webber has played down the likely impact of F1's lifting of the ban on team orders.

"People shouldn't get too nervous about it. They're not going to see it every weekend," said the Australian.

Webber was an advocate of a team strategy in Red Bull's recent championship campaign, arguing that the 2002 ban did not stop orders from being imposed in F1.

The FIA has decided to lift the ban for 2011 after Ferrari's team strategy at Hockenheim this year showed that enforcement is difficult and controversial.

"I think the Ferrari one was pretty brutal and that's as bad as it gets," Webber said on Tuesday on BBC radio.

But as for team orders 'returning' next year, he laughed: "Yeah, like they ever went!

"When you've got two drivers driving for a team and you can swing the results around every now and again to help the team achieve a better result ... it has been done in the past, it's been done up and down the field.

"I've done it myself at times. I've been on the receiving end of it and done it as well in teams I've driven for in the past," revealed Webber, 34.

His comments are at odds with the policy of strict driver equality at Red Bull, but Webber insists that his spats were never so serious in 2010 as to cause him to think about leaving.

"I knew as a team we could go through growing pains this year and go forward from it," said Webber.

"So it never went through my mind that I needed to go somewhere else."

During the interview, however, Webber did admit that most F1 drivers secretly covet a Ferrari seat.

"I will take each year as it comes," he said. "Contract time always comes around and you're either wanted or you're not. Let's see what happens in 2012.

"I still need to want to do it. What's really important is that you finish on top of your game. I don't want to be beaten by some guys who I don't think should (beat me)."