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Mark Webber is adamant that Fernando Alonso was a deserving winner of the German Grand Prix and that Ferrari was absolutely correct to implement team orders - despite his Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner strongly criticising the move.

Felipe Massa led much of the Hockenheim race but backed off to let his team-mate Alonso overtake with 18 laps to go. Webber reckons that had Massa managed to pull away from the Spaniard, Ferrari would have left the positions as they were - but that as Massa was delaying Alonso, the Brazilian had to yield given their championship positions.

“They gave Felipe a good opportunity to win the grand prix as well,” said Webber. “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.

“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.”

Webber added that team orders were an inevitable part of the sport and he would prefer to see them openly used - as was the case in Germany - rather than being hidden through slow pitstops or false overtaking moves.

“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 said.

“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.

“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.”