For much of the Formula One season the world championship has been a contest between five drivers. Now all of a sudden it’s down to two – Britain’s Lewis Hamilton and Australia’s Mark Webber.

The other three contenders – German Sebastian Vettel, the 23-year-old who has been title favorite most of the year, Englishman Jenson Button, the reigning world champion, and Spaniard Fernando Alonso, the 2005 and ’06 champion – didn’t score a solitary point between them at the latest round.

In winning an intermittently wet and often dramatic Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, McLaren-Mercedes star Hamilton, the 2008 champion, came from four points behind Webber in the championship standings to be three ahead, with six races remaining.

Webber was the fastest qualifier at Spa, his fifth pole position of the year, but his Renault-powered Red Bull RB6 car was sluggish off the start line and he promptly found himself down in seventh place.

So to end the race at this most revered of F1 circuits as runner-up to Hamilton was a great result for Webber.

“I’m very, very happy with second place after the start I had,” Webber said.

“Sensational points.”

He got 18 points, Hamilton 25.

Vettel, showing many signs of feeling the heat of battle and making far too many mistakes, finished a lowly 15th, while Button and Alonso didn’t get to see the chequered flag - Button through no fault of his own, rather Vettel’s, and Alonso perhaps feeling strain of the uphill contest.

“With this (year’s new) points system, you need to finish,” Webber said.

“Consistency is important. You have to capitalise on the days when you are not potentially going to win to get the next best thing, whatever that may be.”

Hamilton now has 182 points for the season, Webber 179, Vettel 151, Button 147 and Alonso 141.

The five were bracketed by just 20 points before Belgium. Now it’s 41, but the importance is the gap from second to third – 28 points between Red Bull teammates Webber and Vettel.

Which is raising the question of whether Red Bull now has to designate Webber as its preference for the title – i.e., get Vettel to shelve his own ambitions and do all he can to assist the Aussie.

That could come under the heading of “team orders” – and they’re, supposedly, illegal in F1.

Clarification, or perhaps greater confusion, of what is and isn’t acceptable as team orders may come next week when motorsport’s world governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) hears the case of Ferrari’s Brazilian driver Felipe Massa surrendering his position in the German GP on July 25 to teammate Alonso, who went on to win the race.

Ferrari was fined US$100,000 that day and now former FIA president Max Mosley wants to see it stripped of its points from that GP in the constructors’ championship and Alonso and Massa, who finished second, lose 25 and 18 respectively in the drivers’ championship.

Niki Lauda, the Austrian who won two of his three world titles at Ferrari and almost lost his life in its cause, wants to see the sport’s most successful and supported team cop “a pasting”.

“What they (Ferrari) did in Hockenheim was against all the rules,” Lauda said.

Ferrari has dismissed Lauda as “a person who has never missed out on a chance to dispense opinions left and right, even if, on more than one occasion, he has had to indulge in some verbal acrobatics to reposition himself in line with the prevailing wind”.

“Niki has missed out on a golden opportunity to keep his mouth shut, given that when he was a Scuderia (Ferrari) driver, the supposed Ferrari driver management policy suited him perfectly.”

McLaren has employed team orders in the past, most infamously in Melbourne in 1998 – when David Coulthard slowed coming on to the start-finish straight to let Mika Hakkinen overtake him and win.

It is hardly likely to need to think of them over the remaining races this season as Hamilton has been its dominant force pretty much all year and Button’s title chances are shot after the impatient Vettel punted him out of the Belgian GP.

But Red Bull is new at this title game, and Webber may be going to need any and all help Vettel can give him – as hard as the German will find that to accept.

The only thing, realistically, that can change things is if Vettel wins the next race, the Italian GP at Monza on Sunday week, with neither Hamilton nor Webber scoring.

“I think it is too early at the moment to say (that one Red Bull driver should be prioritised), but maybe there is a different strategy (needed) compared to McLaren,” Webber said after Spa.

“It’s still too early at the moment – but not far away.”

Red Bull management has made much all year of wanting to see its two drivers racing everyone, including themselves, for the title.

But now that the championship is coming to its climax, pragmatism will - and must - and come into play.

Teams like Williams and to a lesser extent McLaren espouse that the constructors’ championship matters most and that driver glory is secondary.

They, and perhaps even more so Tom Walkinshaw of various F1 and Holden Racing Team V8 Supercar notoriety, regard drivers as light bulbs – appliances to be plugged in to do a job.

Ferrari, on the other hand, has had more reason – as a manufacturer of exotic road cars - to see the value in the constructors’ title, but its absolute preference has always been that one of the men in its cockpits become the world champion driver – and therein lies much of the Ferrari magic.

Red Bull Racing principal Christian Horner has said he has no intention of choosing between Webber and Vettel - yet.

“It’s still a long way to go,” Horner said.

“In reality, it (the points spread) is nothing – there is still 150 points available (by winning all six remaining GPs).

“Lewis Hamilton and Mark have pulled away a little bit from the pack, but that can change very quickly.”

Horner said, with more than a touch of sarcasm, that to nominate one of his drivers over the other for the title “would be team orders – and those are not allowed”.

He also said that Webber “has exceeded all of our expectations, including his own, in what he’s delivered this year”.

And to deliver the world title he’s going to need all the help he can get from those around him, especially his teammate.

The order won’t be as blatant as Ferrari’s in Germany, but it surely will come.

Formula One drivers’ world championship standings after 13 of 19 rounds:

Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 182 points, Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 179, Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 151, Jenson Button (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 147, Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 141, Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari) 109, Robert Kubica (Poland, Renault) 104, Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 102, Adrian Sutil (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 45, Michael Schumacher (Germany, Mercedes) 44, Rubens Barrichello (Brazil, Williams-Cosworth) 30, Kamui Kobayashi (Japan, Sauber-Ferrari) 21, Vitaly Petrov (Russia, Renault) 19, Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy, Force India-Mercedes) 13, Nico Huelkenberg (Germany, Williams-Cosworth) 10, Sebastien Buemi (Switzerland, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 7, Pedro de la Rosa (Spain, Sauber-Ferrari) 6, Jaime Alguersuari (Spain, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 3.

F1 constructors’ championship standings:

Red Bull-Renault 330 points, McLaren-Mercedes 329, Ferrari 250, Mercedes 146, Renault 123, Force India-Mercedes 58, Williams-Cosworth 40, Sauber-Ferrari 27, Toro Rosso-Ferrari 10.

Remaining rounds:

Monza, Italy, September 12; Singapore (night race), September 26; Suzuka, Japan, October 10; Yeongam, Korea, October 24; Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 7; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, November 14.