As the 2010 world championship battles heats up, so too is the competitive rivalry between Red Bull’s teammates.

Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are openly not friends, but with just two races to go this season and 14 points between them, some believe Vettel should now be helping his Australian teammate to the title.

“I am not giving up,” 23-year-old German Vettel said on Thursday in an interview with the DPA press agency.

“It would be stupid to give up the belief in the title. I will continue to fight,” he promised.

Vettel was asked whether he has a cooperative “deal” in place with Webber as the season winds down.

“That is too far away,” he answered. “I must just concentrate on my performance.”

Earlier this week, Webber indicated Vettel is only regarded as the team’s “superstar” because of his young age.

Vettel’s apparent rejoinder is a barb about the pair’s exits from the recent Korean grand prix, with Webber crashing and Vettel retiring with an engine failure.

“Let’s put it this way: I would have been far more disappointed if I had thrown away the car over a personal fault,” said the German.

He said he is not worried about losing the support of his team in deference to Webber.

“I know that my team supports me and that I don’t have to be worried,” answered Vettel.

Jun.9 (GMM)  Jenson Button has played down claims that McLaren’s risky gamble with its fuel loads was the reason for the near-disaster during the Turkish grand prix.

It has emerged that because Lewis Hamilton and teammate Button chased the Red Bulls so hard at Istanbul Park, the drivers were instructed throughout the race to conserve fuel.

Button’s race engineer at one point described the situation as “critical”, shortly after Hamilton had slowed down too much and triggered their wheel-to-wheel battle for the lead.

Afterwards, Hamilton lamented the poor communication and Button was accused of ignoring veiled team orders, sparking the rejoinder that McLaren could have avoided the entire situation by simply running a less aggressive fuel strategy.

But speaking to the Toronto media on Tuesday, 30-year-old Button said the team is right to run the cars as light on fuel as possible.

“If you’re running with two and a half extra kilos in the car, that’s one tenth a lap, which over the course of the race is five seconds.  So you try to be as close on fuel as possible,” he insisted.

It is believed that Hamilton’s winning car had just one litre of fuel left in the tank after he pulled into parc ferme, while Button’s MP4-25 contained only slightly more.