Red Bull's team principal Christian Horner would rather give away another world championship – and with it possibly his career – than give preference to either Mark Webber or Sebastian Vettel, he said yesterday.

Red Bull were the dominant cars for much of last season but lost the world title to Jenson Button. And despite having the fastest cars again this year – they have won 14 poles out of 17 – they face the prospect of losing out again, this time to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, whose victory in the Korean grand prix was his third in four races and his fourth in seven.

It gives the Spaniard an 11-pont lead at the top of the table with two races to go. But while Alonso has a "rear gunner" in the shape of Felipe Massa, who is seemingly happy to accept No2 status at the Scuderia, Red Bull's divided loyalties could cost them dear.

A historic first world championship for Red Bull would almost certainly transform the team. But Horner sounded adamant yesterday when he said: "I have always said it is wrong to favour one driver over the other because Sebastian, 10 laps from the end, was potentially the championship leader. That makes it wrong to put our backing in one direction or the other."

With both Red Bulls failing to finish yesterday Horner faces the most difficult decision of his career. Vettel is now 25 points behind Alonso, while Webber trails by 11. That means that even if Vettel wins the remaining two races, with Webber second and Alonso third, the Spaniard would still win his third world title. But if Webber won them, ahead of Vettel with Alonso third, then the Australian would be champion for the first time.

Deep down, Red Bull would prefer the younger and more marketable Vettel to wear the crown. But in the 12 days leading up to the Brazilian grand prix, which is followed by the final race in Abu Dhabi a week later, Horner is likely to face some strong lobbying from Webber, who feels the team should back him.

If Alonso does take the title by seven points, or fewer, it will bring back uncomfortable memories of the German grand prix in July, when Ferrari deliberately broke the rules by asking team-mate Massa to make way, though the World Motor Sport Council opted not to punish the Italian team for their transgression.

When asked about that yesterday, Horner replied: "We will deal with that if it happens. Our focus is on getting back ahead of Fernando and I believe we can do it. We just need fewer days like today and more like Japan where we were dominant. When people look into the history books, they won't look into the details. It's about who wins at the end of the year. We have chosen not to go racing that way. Both drivers are still in this championship and I believe it will go right down to the last lap in Abu Dhabi."

Team orders during a race, of course, remain illegal – notionally, at least. But that would not prevent Horner from telling Vettel, before the race, that he must do what is in the best interests of the team.

When Lewis Hamilton was asked what he thought about the seven points issue yesterday he replied: "I have no idea really. You could say that what defined the championship for me was Monza and Singapore. It's not something to focus on at the moment. I've got to focus on the next two races. This is a real positive for me. A massive positive. I'm 21 points behind but that is not too far away."

McLaren, like Red Bull, face a dilemma over team orders because the world champion Jenson Button, who now trails by 42 points, no longer has a realistic chance of retaining his title.

When the McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, was asked whether Button would now be asked to support Lewis, he said: "We will think about that. We've had a disappointing day with Jenson, Lewis is clearly very much in the hunt and mathematically it's still not impossible for Jenson but it looks quite tough. It looks very difficult for him. We'll talk about that before we get to Brazil.

"If ever there was a race that you could look at and say anything could happen in the championship this is the one. From the championship point of view this is a great result. Jenson had a really bad afternoon for a whole range of reasons and was really unlucky so it's looking pretty tricky for him but you've got to say the other four guys are very much in the hunt and anything can happen.

"In the race if he hadn't taken to the grass at one point he would have had a Force India on top of him. By his high standards it was a very difficult afternoon. For me I was disappointed when a win was possible. It was winnable and we didn't. Nevertheless we go away here still very much in contention with Lewis and two really interesting races ahead. This race demonstrated anything can happen in the championship. It's still wide open."