Ferrari stick to their team ethic - all for one

So will Rubens Barrichello tell Ferrari's sporting director, Jean Todt, to take a hike the next time he comes on the radio and instructs him to throw a race? Will he thumb his nose and pat the newly inked two-year contract extension in his overalls pocket? Don't bet on it.

There is as much chance of the Brazilian being allowed to win if Michael Schumacher's car is healthy and running alongside him, as there is of Minardi winning a Grand Prix.

If it did nothing else Ferrari's cynical display in the Austrian Grand Prix at Spielberg last week, when the hapless Barrichello was instructed to hand the race to Schumacher after outrunning him all weekend – for the second year in a row – finally laid to rest the notion that this is a sport rather than a multi-million dollar business.

At a time when Formula One's ratings have taken a bit of a dip after two less than scintillating races, a fresh winner would have been popular the world over. But Todt sees Formula One only in business terms, and Ferrari's business is winning championships. The contract Ferrari have with Schumacher calls for him to be allowed precedence over any team-mate. Self-serving the decision certainly was, but this is not a game of tiddly-winks.

"And the thing is, terrible though it is to have to admit it, nothing could be better for Formula One the way that it is at present," suggests the Sky TV pundit and former driver John Watson. "More people around the world are talking about the sport after Sunday than they would have been had Rubens won, by a factor of 100 to one. But that's no reflection on Rubens. I thought he deserved the win."

Watson says he was impressed with the manner in which Barrichello coped with his understandable disappointment. "I thought that he showed great composure and statesmanship. He was impressive all weekend and particularly in the press room afterwards. He was outstanding, whereas Michael just looked embarrassed."

On BBC Radio Five Live Sir Jackie Stewart said he thought Schumacher had the greatest influence on the team of anyone he had known in all his years of watching Ferrari. "But Michael could easily have disregarded the instruction," he added. "It could have been altered by Michael's personal initiative."

But, of course, he didn't and it wasn't. Schumacher might have put on a fine Bette Davis act in the press room, but a win is a win and in the past he has shown that he will take them any way that they come.

So what are Barrichello's chances of making it stick next time? Will he now say enough? He might have put a brave face on things on Sunday, but his optimism for the future was not convincing.

"I'm going through a period of a very good time in my life," he began. "I'm becoming a better person, a better driver, so there's no point in arguing. My determination will bring me more wins, so that's the way I see it, so there's no point arguing."

A team with genuine sporting passion rather than cold-blooded aims would never have put a competitive driver in such a cruel position. But Ferrari are not going to engineer any let-up in Barrichello's role as Schumacher's stooge, and he is not going to be permitted to destabilise the sensitive internal dynamics of a one-man team.

"What Ferrari did was disgraceful from the public's point of view," Watson says, "but I can understand fully what they were doing in the context of being a team. Michael Schumacher has a very specific contract with Ferrari and Rubens Barrichello is aware of what that contract stipulates. So what's the surprise?

"Will it happen again? Absolutely. I think that Ferrari were disingenuous to treat the public that way and the backlash is much greater than they anticipated. But if the same situation arises in Monaco or anywhere else before Michael has been crowned this year's world champion, the same thing will occur, even if not quite the same way. The team is there to win for Ferrari and for Michael."

Watson once asked Eddie Irvine why he didn't just tell Ferrari to get lost when he was given team orders back in 1999. "He told me he simply couldn't. He said that if he did that he wouldn't be driving the car at the next race. I'm quite sure that would be the case with Rubens. Ferrari are capable of doing whatever they feel needs to be done. And after all, it's their dummy, if they want to spit it."

Team orders are not new. There have been several recent incidents with all of the top teams – Ferrari, Williams and McLaren – in which one driver has been obliged to hand a race to his team-mate. Like it or not, it's part of racing. But the sport's governing body have summoned Ferrari to attend a meeting of the World Council on 26 June to explain their tactics in Austria. The FIA do not want to see races fixed, and president Max Mosley said: "What is not acceptable is any arrangement which interferes with a race and cannot be justified by the relevant team's interest in the championship."

Last Sunday's fiasco had an additional problem, one to which the FIA have been sensitive in the past: local dignitaries do not like being booed when dishing out trophies on the podium.

But will severe action be taken against Ferrari? It's about as likely as Michael Schumacher losing the 2002 world title.