So, team orders are back in the news. And with the FIA World Motor Sport Council due to look at Ferrari’s actions at the German Grand Prix, they’re set to stay in the news. Oh joy.

How does Formula 1 keep getting into this mess? The standard argument is that it’s a team sport, so team orders are unavoidable. I agree. The problem comes, I believe, when team orders are issued in the heat of competition.

Felipe Massa being told, while leading the race, that he had to give the place to Fernando Alonso, was never going to go down well. Had Massa known, before the race, that he’d never be allowed to lead his team mate – assuming he didn’t, of course – then perhaps the place could have been swapped a little more seamlessly.

But that would have meant telling Massa, in only the middle of the season, that his role is now to support Alonso, not go for the championship himself. Which is a tough conversation to justify. It’s easier to get Massa’s engineer to tell him to move over in the middle of a race, as and when required. Quite cowardly on the part of Ferrari management though, isn’t it?

Take MotoGP: with no radio communications during the race, any team move has to be orchestrated between the riders alone, knowing what the team expects of them, and they can generally do it in a more acceptable manner. And only later in the season, when that conversation is more justifiable. Unless it’s Yamaha, who wouldn’t even try to have that conversation with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

It’s a similar story in the World Rally Championship: there was uproar when Sebastien Ogier was used in the heat of the moment to benefit Sebastien Loeb at Rally Jordan. But Ford and Citroen both have established number two drivers, and that’s not really a problem.

The rule of thumb should be: if you can’t rationally discuss team orders in advance, and come to an agreement with all concerned, then they’re probably not justifiable. If you go ahead anyway, half-arsed in the heat of the moment, then you’re going to piss off the fans.

Not sure exactly how the FIA can phrase that in the rule book, though.