Two former world champions have disagreed over the latest 'team orders' row to engulf F1, with Jody Scheckter insisting that 'it's always been a team sport' and 'that's the way it is', and Damon Hill countering that drivers 'have a licence to be able to race when✃ever they want to' and that it is precisely such wheel-to-wheel action that draws the fans in.

The whole episode erupted after Red Bull Racing told Mark Webber to cool his challenge on team-mate Sebastian Vettel's second place in the closing stages of last weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone, an instruction with which the pole position-sitter was palpably 'not fine' and that he ignored 'four or five' times [see separate story - 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:click here].

Webber and Red Bull team principal Christian Horner have since sat down to discuss the 🍨matter behind closed doors, but in the media, some of F1's leading figures have debated the wisdom of the energy drinks-backed outfit's call - and whether the Englishman was right to have made the decision that he did, or the Australian justified in feeling hard-done-by. Opinions differ.

"It's nicer to see [racing], but I think there are always going to be team orders," mused Scheckter, a man who benefitted from the dutiful support of his own team-mate, Gilles Villeneuve, as he clinc🌳hed the world championship crown with Ferrari in the 1979 Italian Grand Prix at Monza - even though tꦗhe French-Canadian could still have laid claim to it himself.

"You really can't stop it," he added, speaking to the BBC, "and it's silly to have a rule that you 🐟can't really stop. It's always been a team sport. You've got the two drivers, and they really are trying to work for the team - that's the way a team runs. It's like any team sport - you've got to do what's right for the team.

"I think the decision [Horner] made was the corre🐟ct decision. It was a bit sad to see it because you want to see a nice dice, and Webber is a nice guy and everybody wants him to win I think, but anyway, that's the way it is. If he had won a lot of races or been pretty equal [with Vettel in the championship standings], then I would have thought something different, but he's so far behind that they mꦇade the right decision."

Whilst Scheckter concedes that he can understand Webber being 'upset' but that the 34-year-old must accept his team's choice, Hill conversely argues that denying a driver the option of actually racing is to deny them their very raison d'?tre. Team bosses, asserts the 1996 title-winner and current British Racing Drivers' Club (BRDC) President, should trust their drivers to race cleanly and not run into o𒁏ne another - but equally, he contends, no blame should fall upon the management's🐼 shoulders if the likes of Istanbul, 2010 do reoccur.

"It would have been very sad if it had ended up in a collision between Sebastian and Mark, but I have to speak up for drivers," Hill told the BBC. "I think they also have a licence or a right to be able to race whenever they want to, and it's their call as 💯to whether they are able to manage that overtaking manoeuvre on their team-mate or not without taking him off.

"The fans want to see racing, so I think there's some discussion that need♛s to happen in the sport about how you manage that. I understand the investment, I understand the commitment and the work and the time and everything, but ultimately, you can't stop racing drivers from racing each other.

"As the rules stand, [team principals] have to make those calls, but I think it could be adapted so that there could be no recrimination to the team or the team principal for nꩵot instructin🦩g his drivers one way or another, because it's understood that the drivers are entitled to race each other - and really at the end of the day, that's what people buy their tickets for."