In the wake of the high profile spat between Chinese Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg, where the latter accused the Briton of compromising his race, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has denied any wrong doing by the reigning world champion.
Wolff said he is loathe to issue 'team orders', but confirmed that Hamilton had in fact been asked by radio to speed up so that Rosberg's race was not compromised by the charging Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.
"It could have come to a point where we would have been very firm on the radio saying 'This is what needs to be done'," the Austrian said.
"Lewis didn't do anything wrong," said Wolff, "but we realised that Nico was in the risk of falling into third place or even worse. So there were a lot of thoughts on the pitwall. We were close to having such an unpopular call."
According to former F1 driver Patrick Tambay, the lasting outcome of the Shanghai saga may have been etched on Hamilton's smirk on Sunday as Rosberg laid out his complaint.
Tambay told France's RMC Sport: "Hamilton proved today that he is the boss in his team."
Meanwhile Rosberg has vowed to move on after his post-race complaints leveled at Hamilton.
Addressing his fans in a video posted on social media from the Shanghai airport, the German said "constructive criticism" had been exchanged in team meetings "and we're moving on to Bahrain".
"Now it's a thing of the past," said Rosberg, who was highly critical of championship leader and Shanghai winner Hamilton's race tactics on Sunday.
The 29-year-old, who has been outshone by world champion Hamilton so far in 2015, may have been placated by the promise of action from the pitwall should Hamilton not up his pace to fend off rivals' advances in future.
Hamilton and Rosberg have competed against each other since their teens in karting, and prior to last year were good friends, drifted apart last year as they went head-to-head for the world championship title.
The biggest flash-point coming during the Belgian Grand Prix where Rosberg tagged Hamilton and with it sparked the animosity that has simmered ever since, with Rosberg vilified at the time for his role in the incident.
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