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).”

Sebastian Vettel should not have been penalised for losing control at Spa-Francorchamps.

That is the opinion of an unlikely supporter of the 23-year-old Red Bull driver: Marc Gene.

Spaniard Gene is Ferrari’s occasional test driver, who said the drive-through penalty after Vettel crashed into Jenson Button on Sunday “was totally disproportionate”.

“It is true that he was too aggressive, but for there to be a penalty … he did nothing wrong, it was an incident of the race,” Gene wrote in his El Mundo newspaper column.

Niki Lauda’s is a harsher critique, predicting that one more mistake for the young German will end his 2010 title chances.

“You’re an absolute super-talent but you’ve taken excessive risks,” the former triple world champion wrote in Bild newspaper.

“One more mistake and your world championship will be over. Then you will have to drive for your teammate, which would be the ultimate penalty,” said Lauda.

He thinks Vettel is struggling with the pressure.

“You’re in the fastest car,” Lauda said, addressing Vettel personally. “The pressure can be paralysing, because everyone expects you to be in front and everything else is a disappointment.”

Lewis Hamilton, who according to British commentator Martin Brundle is driving better today than in his championship year in 2008, said Vettel’s lack of experience is showing.

“The older I get, the more I understand about experience. Mark (Webber) is a very mature man and that definitely helps,” said the McLaren driver.

David Coulthard advises his Red Bull successor Vettel to get used to the criticism, observing that “the knives seem to be out for him” now.

“I want to make it clear I am not trying to excuse Sebastian’s recent high-profile errors,” he wrote in the Telegraph.

“I see a young man who is suffering from his first spell of growing pains,” added the veteran of almost 250 races.

“I am not excusing them (the mistakes) – as I have said before, F1 is no finishing school – I’m just saying they are understandable,” said Coulthard.