Red Bull have long insisted that no driver receives superior treatment from the team; however, this was called into question on Sunday night after their Director of Something-or-Other Helmut Marko appeared to be the only person in the world to think that the collision was Webber’s fault, rather than that of his overexuberant teammate.

Smashing: Red Bull's driver policy in action

Today Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed that previous statements have been false: “Following speculation over whether we practice driver favouritism, we have decided to address those doubts by confirming that we do, in fact, intend to benefit one driver.

“That driver is Jenson Button.”

Though the announcement initially came as a shock, it was later reflected upon as being unsurprising. “We did everything we could to ensure that Jenson, and not Sebastian or Mark, won the world championship in 2009, and we intend to do the same this year,” Horner continued. “This has been done through a range of reliability issues, strategic errors, and when all else fails – as it did yesterday – brazen stupidity and incompetence, on the part of both our drivers and senior team staff.”

Button expressed his relief that the story had finally broken: “I’m glad it’s all out in the open now,” the 2009 world champion, one of the main beneficiaries of yesterday’s incident, claimed. “It’s been very embarrassing, having to hide the blatant bias of the Red Bull team in my favour up until now,” he added.

This latest announcement is believed to be related to the revelation that Red Bull’s preparations for the notoriously demanding Canadian Grand Prix include the use of Melbourne-specification brakes for the Montreal race. “It makes perfect sense,” Horner said.

The news comes just days after Fernando Alonso revealed that his thumbs had been insured for €10 million by Spanish bank Santander, in a move which had absolutely nothing to do with the one-year sponsorship deal announced at the same time between the driver and the bank’s insurance group.

Insured: Red Bull driver Mark Webber

According to the Red Bull team, Webber’s middle fingers, now covered for “several million” pounds, are “an essential part of his motor racing repertoire,” as they allow the Australian to express his opinions of his fellow drivers, without having to go through all the tedious business of swearing on live television.

“The diverse range of functions performed by Mark’s middle fingers mean that it is essential these assets are protected,” a Red Bull spokesman stated earlier today. “Not only do they allow him to express displeasure in an efficient manner, but they are also extremely useful for signalling what position he has finished in, behind Sebastian Vettel.”

The fad of Formula One figures insuring unusual body parts is set to catch on further, though so far no company has been willing to cover Eddie Jordan’s tongue, due to its high risk of damage incurred by overuse.

Newey, widely regarded as one of the finest F1 minds of his generation, claims that the effect of the F-duct is to alter airflow towards the rear of the car, “stalling” the brains of other teams’ designers and reducing their ability to come up with speculative and complex ways in which the system might be considered to break the rules.

Concerned: Red Bull designer Adrian Newey

“The F-duct is a very clever piece of engineering, that’s for sure,” Newey said at Red Bull’s headquarters today. “However as designers we have to be concerned about the way this feature is affecting our ability to do our jobs.

“By changing the airflow over the back of the car, the F-duct affects the minds of rival team members who are trying to protest against McLaren’s ideas. The net effect is that our straw-clutching capacity is reduced, which means that we are less able to point out flaws with the system when it comes to formally complaining about them.”

The technical chief also went on to point out safety concerns with McLaren’s system: “If they are actively hindering the cognitive abilities of rival designers, it won’t be long before there is a serious problem. Somebody could end up doing something completely dangerous and stupid, like designing some kind of active suspension system and trying to hide it with heavily-built mechanics. That would be comical at best.”

Other teams have abandoned legal protests over McLaren’s system and have instead focused on copying it, though Sauber have thus far discovered that poking additional holes in their already-fragile chassis is not necessarily a good idea.

Accidental: The Red Bull RB6, complete with sheet

Although variable fuel loads, different testing strategies and “sandbagging” (defined as a McLaren going slowly for reasons the team aren’t prepared to admit to) make it difficult to read too much into testing times, Red Bull insist their improvement in pace – which put Mark Webber at the top of the time sheets this morning – is real and easily explained.

“It’s quite embarrassing really,” team principal Christian Horner told journalists during the lunch break at Barcelona. “It turns out that, during the testing at Jerez, we were so concerned that no other team steal our diffuser designs that we accidentally ran for the whole week with a big sheet covering the rear of the car.

“Obviously this had quite a big effect in terms of performance and airflow, which means that a lot of the data we gathered in Jerez is now pretty useless. It has set us back a bit, but we’re confident we will still be the best team of all come Bahrain.”

Sources in the paddock indicate that Mercedes GP in particular are frustrated by the revelations, having brought a big sheet of their own to Barcelona in the hope of emulating some of Red Bull’s success.

Secrecy is nothing new in F1, and is being practiced to varying degrees by other teams this season. USF1 has so far adopted the most extreme solution, being so cautious about its radical transverse gearbox that it has done all of its testing so far this year without a car.

Celebrated: German GP winner Webber

The postage stamps, which depicted Webber’s Red Bull Racing car crossing the finish line at the Nurburgring, were captioned with the phrase “F***IN’ BEAUTY!”, in homage to the Australian’s emotional reaction to winning the race over the pit-to-car radio. After hundreds of books of the stamps were sent out to post offices across the country, the expletive was discovered and the Post Office forced to make an embarrassing recall announcement.

“Unfortunately nobody bothered to check what the caption was before the stamps were printed,” a spokesman for the postal service explained. “One of our junior staffers was asked to caption the picture with a suitable phrase to capture the emotion of the moment, and it is regrettable that he chose to use Webber’s exact words upon winning the race.

“With hindsight, we probably should have been more careful, especially given Mark’s record,” the spokesman confessed. This last comment is believed to refer to the Australian star’s Facebook page, where he lists his hobbies as “running, cycling, swimming and swearing on live television.”

The original set of stamps are expected to be destroyed when they are returned to the Post Office, so surviving specimens will begin to accumulate huge value in the stamp-collecting world. Our Australian correspondent asked a bearded man in an anorak for his opinion on the situation, though on closer inspection he turned out to be Rolf Harris rather than a stamp collector.

Webber said he was heartened by the decision to commemorate his achievement with a special stamp, but dismayed that the error had been allowed to be made. “It’s a f***ing shame,” the Australian told Channel Ten’s evening news programme.