Red Bull's Mark Webber has become the latest F1 driver to wade in to the argument over Ferrari's contentious order-swapping at the German GP, saying that he felt Felipe Massa was given the chance to win but failed to prove his speed.
Webber was speaking on the eve of the Hungarian GP weekend, which Ferrari arrive under the shadow of Ordergate, after they appeared to use supposedly banned team orders to move Fernando Alonso ahead of Massa in the race at Hockenheim.
But Webber believes that the team gave Massa a fair chance to win the race, and believes that had the Brazilian been able to pull away from Alonso at the crucial point of the race, then he would have been allowed to keep the win.
"They gave Felipe a good opportunity to win the grand prix as well," Webber shrugged casually when asked about the Ferrari issue.
"They gave him the chance to win the race up to the point where he couldn't pull away from Fernando. Obviously they had a decision in the team where the fastest guy in the team wins the race. The fastest guy on that day won the race."
He added that: "I still believe [Massa] has a chance to win this race here [in Hungary] - a real chance to win. If he is fast enough to disappear, he will win the race. That was the opportunity he also had at Hockenheim.
"His first stint at Hockenheim was incredible, a very good first stint. The second stint obviously just wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the positions being moved around because they wanted the faster guy to win the grand prix."
He also suggested that it was inevitable that some form of team orders are used in the sport, saying that he would rather see the team being honest about their decision on the track than trying to manipulate the result through more devious means. Whether or not he meant means like swapping front wing components around was unclear.
"[It is] very, very, very difficult to control team orders. They've been happening for 40 years in the sport and they'll happen in the future," he sighed.
"That's the way it is. If you have a two-car team, three-car team, four-car team, there's always going to be certain situations at certain tracks and certain points in championships where one car is going to need to be in a definite position and the team can influence that - so they will."
He went on to say: "It's better than doing a deliberate bad pitstop, or whatever. You can do so many things to make it hard, so to try and have a rule which says that you cannot manipulate or have a team order in a grand prix is virtually impossible.
"I could [agree] something tonight between you and me in the hotel and it would be done.
"Much better to do something like [in Germany] than something that's hidden from everyone. In this case, this team got the maximum result. Obviously for the fans, you can understand it was a different thing.
"But it's happened so many times since '02. For the victory it's a different thing, but the people who think it's the first time it's happened are absolutely dreaming. It's not the only time."
The Ferrari team could still face further punishment over their actions, despite the argument that the German race was far from the first use of team orders since they were banned in the wake of the 2002 Austrian GP debacle.
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