You can measure the lack of credibility a team has, when it's known that they've got 4 cars at vastly different levels of specification, drivers seeking preferential treatment, etc, and then have the hide to whinge to the media that they're not moving forward as a group.
It's then easy to understand how one driver pops up out of nowhere in practice, or a previous event, or whever, setting the world on fire, and then to be fighting for scraps for the rest of their contract...
I'd have thought any meaningful results a team can generate, would surpass backhouse politics