Nelson Piquet Jr has defended Felipe Massa after the Ferrari driver allowed Fernando Alonso to win Sunday's German grand prix.

In the wake of the Hockenheim team orders affair, the Brazilian media has been hard on 29-year-old Massa, who according to some publications displayed a lack of courage on the anniversary of his 2009 crash.

Heavily criticised last year was Piquet, who argued he was ordered by Flavio Briatore to deliberately crash his Renault during the 2008 Singapore grand prix in order to bring out the safety car and boost Alonso's chances of winning.

"Talk is cheap and it's easy to criticise," Piquet, now driving in NASCAR's lower-tier truck series, is quoted by Globo Esporte.

"But the hole is deeper than you think."

Indeed, Massa has been quoted in Brazil as saying "many drivers" would have acted similarly in his shoes at Hockenheim, and after leaving Ferrari, Rubens Barrichello revealed that he would have lost his job had he not moved over for Michael Schumacher in 2002.

Mika Salo subbed for an injured Schumacher at Ferrari in 1999, and he tells Finland's Turun Sanomat that "they made it clear that if Eddie (Irvine) is behind me, my job is to give space".

At that year's German grand prix, Salo was leading the race.

"I looked in the mirrors and then I saw that Eddie overtook Frentzen. After a couple of seconds Ross Brawn came on the radio and said Mika, we want you to let Eddie go.

"I think it makes sense that Ferrari sees Alonso with clearly a better chance for the title. But it could have been managed quite a lot better, especially when the engineer asked Massa if he understood what he had to do," said Salo.

In his El Pais column, Epsilon Euskadi chief Joan Villadelprat agrees that the team order was a flagrant rule breach.

"Of course, it was very clear. He (Massa) was left with no choice. All the fans knew it immediately, although it is possible the World Council will fail to demonstrate it.

"I remember in 2002 that Barrichello received a threat that it would trouble his contract if he did not budge.

"I think the worst damage is not the fine or a penalty, but that the brilliant work on the team and the drivers to catch up to Red Bull was spoiled by unnecessarily unsportsmanlike conduct.

"Ferrari's errors this year have been too many and too large. Someone has to take some action, to tell the team leaders that it's enough.

"And someone should calm down Fernando, so that he doesn't repeat comments like 'This is ridiculous' the first time he tried to pass Massa.

"We're taking about a double world champion, the best driver in the paddock, a title contender, but on occasion it is necessary to put his brakes on," added Spaniard Villadelprat.

Bernie Ecclestone has said that some unspecified F1 teams have been a “nuisance” and that the sport would not miss them if they were to drop out.

In a clear reference to the newer teams, Ecclestone said that with the exception of Lotus, he did not understand what they had brought.

“All we ever want is 10 teams,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “Lotus is a good name. I wouldn’t want to lose them. But in general this year has been a bit of a nuisance because it has cost money to keep these [struggling] teams in. It has cost a lot of money to pay for them to compete.

“The bottom line is they haven’t really and truly given us value for being there. If suddenly these teams don’t turn up at races then I don’t think the crowds will get any smaller, or the TV sets will turn off, or the newspapers will stop writing, will they?”

The words will be music to the ears of drivers and more established teams who have criticised the slower cars on the grid this season.

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber looked to be in a world of their own round the Hungaroring on Friday morning in the opening practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix. They traded fastest times a second clear of their closest rivals, and ended the 90-minute session with Vettel fractionally ahead with 1m 20.976s to 1m 21.106s.

So far the Ferraris have got nowhere near their pace, and the strongest challenger was Robert Kubica who wheeled his Renault round in 1m 22.072s to head Jenson Button’s McLaren (1m 22.444s), Rubens Barrichello’s Williams (1m 22.601s), Pedro de la Rosa’s BMW Sauber (1m 22.764s), Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari (1m 22.772s), Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes (1m 22.777s), Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes (1m 22.792s) and Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams (1m 22.966s).

Behind them, Adrian Sutil continued on-track development of Force India’s blown diffuser and lapped his VJM03 in 1m 23.003s. Team mate Vitantonio Liuzzi doesn’t get the new component this weekend because there’s only one, and he didn’t get to drive this morning either, as Paul di Resta again took his place to learn an unfamiliar track. The Scot was 15th on 1m 23.520s.

Between them, Felipe Massa was 12th in the second Ferrari on 1m 23.007s, then came Vitaly Petrov who spun his Renault exiting the last corner but managed to avoid contact with the pit wall; he lapped in 1m 23.249s. Kamui Kobayashi was behind him, with 1m 23.327s for BMW Sauber.

Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were 16th and 17th for Toro Rosso, with respective laps of 1m 23.780s and 1m 23.868s, and Lewis Hamilton was a troubled 18th on 1m 24.075s for McLaren.

Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen headed the new teams in their Lotuses, with 1m 25.032s and 1m 25.210s, then came the Virgins of Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi on 1m 25.990s and 1m 26.686s. Bruno Senna and Sakon Yamamoto brought up the rear for HRT, with 1m 26.990s and 1m 28.157s.

Apart from Petrov’s spin, the only other incident of note was Sutil’s early rotation in Turn Two.