Red Bull have announced there will be no team orders in their camp at least until the closing races of the season - but how long will that decision really last?

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Team orders have been officially banned from the sport ever since Ferrari made a mockery of them during their dominant 2002 championship campaign, when they famously asked Rubens Barrichello to move over for Michael Schumacher at the Austrian Grand Prix and the Brazilian, to make a point, waited until the final corner to make the switch.

Since then, team orders have been the 'decision' of the driver and the team can only suggest that one driver might perhaps be kind enough to allow the other past if it is for the good of the championship.

And this has put Red Bull are in a difficult situation.

Championship-leading Brawn driver Jenson Button is 25 points clear of Red Bull's lead driver Sebastian Vettel, who is third in the title race. Sandwiched between the pair is Button's team-mate Barrichello, who is second but, crucially, 23 points behind.

That makes Button already clearly the number one at Brawn, but at Red Bull Vettel is just 3.5 points ahead of Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, who sits in fourth.

German Vettel has hit the headlines with two race wins to Webber's nil so far this year, but the Australian has three second places, has scored in one more race than his team-mate, and is eager to take on both Vettel and Button in a race for the title.

Red Bull gave Brawn a clear hint at Silverstone that Button may need every point he can get to keep hold of his lead to the end of the season, and Brawn are likely to be ready to make that call and ease Barrichello into his all-too-familiar 'number two' position as the season heads over its halfway point, much as Ferrari did during all those years alongside Schumacher.

But Red Bull are far from having the significant level of points gap between their two drivers that would allow them the comfort of calling in 'suggested' team orders. To make the call with 3.5 points between the pair, despite apparent urges from Vettel for the team to do so, would leave Webber fuming and likely create an unfixable rift between team and driver.

Team boss Christian Horner is no fool. He knows his driver line-up is a strong one and he would not want to jeopardise that for the future - but he also knows that to take on what is already effectively a one-man focused team at Brawn he will surely need to adopt a similarly singular focus at Red Bull sooner rather than later if they want to battle for the drivers' crown.

And so these next few races could be crucial.

It's hard to see either of the Red Bull drivers running too far down the points, so the separation gap will likely remain close for the next few races unless either one makes mistakes or suffers unreliability. If that happens, and the gap widens, then surely Red Bull are going to have to start thinking about the championship...

Award-winning sports journalist Will Gray has worked in and around Formula One for more than a decade, providing detailed technical insight as well as live news reports and features for newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and Daily Star, AFP and Reuters news agencies and a variety of magazines. He has also worked as an F1 expert on TalkSPORT and Irish radio.