Stefano Domenicali has welcomed the FIA’s abolition of the rule prohibiting team orders.

The governing body, now headed by president Jean Todt, revisited the controversial rule after Ferrari’s place-swapping during this year’s German grand prix at Hockenheim.

The Maranello based team never admitted to ordering Felipe Massa to move aside for Fernando Alonso, but at the same time has always maintained that F1 is a team sport in which team strategies are commonplace.

“Finally, we have said goodbye to this pointless hypocrisy,” said team boss Domenicali after Friday’s announcement that article 39.1 has been “deleted” for 2011.

“For us, formula one is a team sport and we have always maintained that viewpoint and it should be treated as such,” he told reporters at the Bologna motor show.

Team orders will be “regulated” rather than allowed in formula one, FIA president Jean Todt has revealed.

The issue came back onto the agenda in 2010, when Felipe Massa was ordered aside for Fernando Alonso at Hockenheim by a Ferrari engineer telling the Brazilian: “Fernando is faster than you”.

“Personally, I’m not against team orders, but I am against lying,” the Frenchman is quoted as saying in interviews this week.

He said covert team orders “deceive the audience and the media” and subsequently require teams and drivers to lie afterwards.

“Team orders have been banned since 2002, but I ask myself how many have been issued in a ‘soft’ way.  The difference with that and what Ferrari did (at Hockenheim) is that it was anything but soft.

“It was a provocation against the regulations,” Todt told Italy’s La Stampa.

But when asked if the FIA will react to the latest affair by simply abolishing the rule, he answered: “It will be regulated.

“F1 is a team sport and each team will have responsibility for their behaviour.  We will not tolerate lies or coded messages like ‘Save fuel’.”

Fascinatingly, former Ferrari team boss Todt blamed Rubens Barrichello for the original team orders controversy of 2002, when the Brazilian was explicitly ordered on the radio to ‘Let Michael (Schumacher) pass for the championship’.

“I shouldn’t have had to say anything,” Todt said this week.

“We had agreed beforehand that if he (Barrichello) is in front after the pitstop, he was to let Schumacher pass without making a fuss.

“It was agreed, and drivers are paid to accept certain decisions.

“But he made me call him 50 times and he moved at the last corner — the audience booed, Schumacher gave him first place on the podium and Ferrari was fined $500,000 for violating protocol,” he explained.

Asked if he regrets the affair, he admitted: “Yes, because with hindsight it could have been avoided.  Schumacher would have won the championship anyway.

“But I would have regretted even more if we had lost the title by a couple of points,” added Todt.

And in an interview with France’s L’Equipe, Todt said he thought the works Renault drivers “helped” Renault-powered Red Bull to win the 2010 championship by holding up key rivals in Abu Dhabi.

“They (Robert Kubica and Vitaly Petrov) helped Red Bull, even though this team often complain about the lack of competitiveness of the Renault engine,” he said.

Should ‘team orders’ be deployed in Sunday’s 2010 championship finale, one of the stewards may not be voting to penalise the technically illegal practice.

When asked about whether Sebastian Vettel will be asked to move aside to help his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber win the drivers’ title, driver representative Emanuele Pirro said: “They would be fools if they did not.

“We will monitor it and try to assess the situation,” the Roman, earlier accused of being biased in favour of Ferrari, is quoted by La Stampa newspaper.

The key, Pirro said, is the execution of a team strategy.

“There are many ways for a driver to help the other, but it’s perhaps naive to be using coded messages on the radio,” he explained.

Within the paddock, there are few observers who believe a team with drivers in contention for the title should not be allowed to collaborate to prevent a rival team from winning the championship.

So former Ferrari driver Jean Alesi thinks Red Bull have been wrong to suggest that the drivers will be left entirely to their own devices.

“They are trapped because of the way they have discussed it,” he told The National. “They have tried to say they are clean and they don’t do it, but that is misinformation. It is not true.

“They will definitely use it,” insisted the Frenchman.

Ferrari’s team boss Stefano Domenicali also will not be complaining if Red Bull deploy a driver strategy on Sunday, denouncing the team orders saga as “nonsense”.

“There are team orders in formula one because it is a team sport,” he is quoted by Sport Bild.

“The rule cannot be controlled so it should be abolished. And if it is believed that a team has harmed the sport, then section 151 of the Sporting Code still applies.”

Even Red Bull’s Helmut Marko thinks the prohibition of team orders in F1 is wrong.

“The paragraph should be reconsidered,” the Austrian told sport1.de. “Either it is valid and real penalties apply, or we do away with it entirely, which is probably more realistic.”

Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali has admitted he would like to see formula one overturn its ban on team orders.

Germany’s Bild newspaper said the Italian answered with a clear ‘yes’, adding: “F1 is a team sport.”

Currently, article 39.1 of the sporting regulations explicitly prohibits team orders, but the subject is now the topic of hot debate, given Felipe Massa’s reluctant move to let Fernando Alonso win the recent German grand prix.

Peter Sauber agrees with Domenicali: “Team orders should be allowed, because in formula one, ultimately the interests of the team are at the fore.”

Mercedes’ Ross Brawn added: “We understand that the fans are unhappy. But the teams need to work together with the FIA for a solution that takes into account the competition as well as the interests of the team.

Christian Horner’s stance against team orders is well known, and Toro Rosso’s Franz Tost agrees: “To have a fair sport, team orders must be prohibited.”

HRT’s Colin Kolles adds: “Team orders must stay banned. Otherwise the sport aspect is damaged.”

Interestingly, McLaren declined to answer Bild’s team orders survey.

The bosses and drivers of the British team have been fervently referring to the philosophy of fairness and ethics within McLaren, but others recalled Hockenheim 2008, when Heikki Kovalainen moved over for Lewis Hamilton in much the same way as Massa did for Alonso.

Kovalainen, now driving for Lotus, did not want to talk about that incident in Hungary.

“I don’t remember that,” said the Finn. “For me, there’s no point in going into the past, actually. I’m just here to race with Lotus and that’s all I can say.”

Like McLaren, bosses for Lotus, Williams, Force India, Renault and Virgin also declined to answer Bild’s survey.

F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone insisted he is happy with the publicity being generated by the saga.

“Everyone is talking about formula one — what more could you want?” the 79-year-old told Blick newspaper.

Pedro de la Rosa on Thursday urged formula one to “turn the page” after the team orders scandal.

Cameramen and media hounded both Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso in the Hungaroring paddock, mere days after they swapped positions for victory in Germany.

With a World Motor Sport Council inquiry now pending, the saga is still F1′s hottest topic, but de la Rosa – who drives for Ferrari-powered Sauber and is a Spaniard like Alonso – described it as “nonsense”.

“We must turn the page and not discuss this nonsense anymore,” he is quoted by EFE news agency.

De la Rosa, however, did not shy away from declaring that he thinks team orders have a place in formula one.

“We need to legalise it, because you cannot lie to the spectators; team orders have always existed and will always exist because this is a team sport,” he said.

He said he would agree to move over for his teammate, Kamui Kobayashi, if the order “makes sense for the good of the team”.

“I understand very well and I think the whole world does as well that this is a team sport. In the first race it would be absurd, but after the halfway point of the championship, team orders seem logical to me,” insisted de la Rosa, 39.

But, after speaking with Rubens Barrichello this week, it is not clear if Massa is prepared to move over for a second time.

Asked on Thursday what he would do if he is leading and Alonso is second on Sunday, the Brazilian said: “I will win.”

Flavio Briatore does not think Ferrari will be heavily punished by the FIA for the Hockenheim team orders affair.

The governing body is set to consider the matter no later than September 10 at its scheduled World Motor Sport Council meeting in Como, Italy.

Ferrari breached article 39.1 of the sporting regulations by ordering that Felipe Massa give way to German grand prix winner Fernando Alonso, and was also charged by the race stewards with bringing the sport into disrepute.

Former Renault boss Briatore was banned from F1 last year by the World Motor Sport Council for the Singapore crash scandal.

He told Italy’s Sky Sport 24: “This (team order) rule makes no sense and should be abolished.  Formula one is a team sport.

“I don’t believe Ferrari did anything wrong,” added the 60-year-old Italian.

“Fernando has more points than Massa and it is logical to bet on the driver with the best chance of winning the title.

“Could it have been better handled?  It’s easy to say so with hindsight, but during a race it’s different.

“It is however clear that Massa’s engineer (Rob Smedley) should not have made certain comments.  But only one guy can win the drivers’ championship.

“It is pointless to stand around being critical.  It is the rule that is completely absurd,” added Briatore.

He does not think Ferrari needs to worry about draconian penalties like exclusion from the world championship or race bans.

“The chairman of the World Council is Jean Todt, who managed Ferrari when in 2002 in Austria he ordered Barrichello to let Schumacher overtake at the chequered flag, so I think we can all relax,” laughed Briatore.