So - how much does an F1 Championship really cost?

So - how much does an F1 Championship really cost? £100 million? £300 million?

Or is it just a case of selling your soul to "the man"? A good person to ask right now ought to be Felipe Massa, having done exactly that yesterday at Hockenheim in the German Grand Prix when he pulled over to let his teammate Fernando Alonso past to win the race. Only Massa has repeatedly disappointed his interviewers by sticking to his story that it was his own decision.
There's no point in joining the argument (if there really is one) about whether or not this was "team orders" - this seems in no doubt, even though Massa, Alonso and everyone Ferrari sticks in front of a camera are swearing that black is white, up is down, and that Massa just decided all by himself to let Alonso through.
What has riled me enough to write this is the appalling farce put on by some media pundits - former drivers mostly - who are at great pains to justify the practice of team orders.
Martin Brundle (of whose commentary I am ordinarily a huge fan) reminds us that this is a team sport and that in F1 this kind of thing has always has gone on and always will. Since when does the repetition of an unethical practice make it right? How many times do you have to do it before it becomes acceptable? The answer - never. Unless your moral GPS is out of whack.
Then there is David Coulthard. His insight as an recent ex-driver is often, well, insightful (with the possible caveat that where the Red Bull team is concerned he is quite a long way up Christian Horner's exhaust pipe). On this issue, however, he shares Brundle's view; "this has always gone on", "without the team the driver would be nothing", "it's a team sport" and so on. He commends Felipe Massa as extremely "professional" for lying to the media about the incident. Let's not beat around the bush here - this isn't diplomacy or tact, we should call it what it is - lying: Massa is lying, his team prinicpal Stefano Domenicali is lying and after the race so was Massa's engineer Rob Smedley, who had the unfortunate job during the race of relaying the not-so-coded instruction to Massa. In my book, being professional includes being honest and upfront, not underhand and deceitful. Being faced with a situation where the easiest route (or the least difficult) is to lie does not make it commendable to do so. There is no doubt that Massa was surely under a lot of pressure to comply with the instruction, but that does not make his compliance correct or laudable. To then lie about it afterwards merely serves to compound the offence.
The rules of F1 are quite clear - no team orders are allowed. But far worse than breaking this rule in my opinion is the dismissive attitude which states that the contest doesn't matter, that open, fair and genuine racing is not important, that the fans can be summarily insulted and dismissed, and that "anything goes" in the pursuit of the title.
In what other sport is it acceptable to fix the result? None. In all other competitions this is surely the most heinous offence. This is about the essence of sport, of true sporting competition. It goes to the very root of the desire to compete. It seems that the corporate bigwigs in F1 are so busy chasing titles and sponsorship that they have forgotten these basic principles.
Messrs Brundle and Coulthard have pointed out repeatedly that Ferrari had no choice but to do this in order to have a chance of winning the Drivers' World Championship with Alonso. Surely, if the only way you can win a contest is to cheat, then you are simply not good enough and don't deserve to win it? Is there anything that is not acceptable in order to win? Or is anything permissible? Just what is the price of an F1 World Championship?