How should Mercedes F1 team handle Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg?

As F1 regroups in Bahrain on Thursday ahead of this weekend's Sakhir, our team in the paddock give their take on the Shanghai row and its implications.

1) Was Rosberg right to complain about Hamilton's race tactics in China?

EDD STRAW (@eddstrawf1): That depends on your definition of right. Hamilton was ahead and what he does in terms of pace was his prerogative.

But it's clear Rosberg is keen to fan the glowing embers of the rivalry with Hamilton after a series of defeats, so from that perspective he clearly believes himself to be right to do it.

In Hamilton's position in that race, it would certainly have appealed to keep the pace tightly-managed to preserve the tyre life, at the same time as increasing the probability of the driver who still has the best possibility to challenge him for the title losing a place.

There's nothing wrong with that at all. It's racing and the reward for being up front. Equally, if Rosberg wants to complain about it, that's perfectly legitimate.

BEN ANDERSON (@benandersonauto): It's easy to argue that Rosberg's post-race rant was simply the bitter backlash of a driver with an inferiority complex at the moment. After all, he has yet to top Hamilton in a qualifying session or a race this season. Why not simply drive faster and try to beat him?

But had he pushed harder and challenged Hamilton there was a real risk (in Mercedes' eyes) that Rosberg would have destroyed his tyres and been forced to make three pitstops, which would have meant almost certainly finishing behind both Ferraris.

The real debate here is whether Mercedes was too cautious with its strategy in China, following defeat in Malaysia two weeks' prior.

The tyres actually held up much better than Mercedes expected (not really surprising given the cooler conditions and a very different track layout to Sepang), which means it could have afforded to run a slightly faster race and avoided putting Rosberg under pressure.

Ultimately, though, Rosberg simply paid the price for being slower than Hamilton in qualifying and not beating him off the line. That's the most upsetting aspect of the whole affair from his point of view.

LAWRENCE BARRETTO (@lawrobarretto): Had Nico Rosberg lost a place to Sebastian Vettel as a result of Lewis Hamilton's tactics in the Chinese Grand Prix, his criticisms - whether they you agree with them or not - would have been more understandable, maybe even fair.

After all, Formula 1 is a team sport and Hamilton and Rosberg both have a responsibility to Mercedes to ensure the team gets the best possible result.

But that wasn't the case, with Rosberg finishing second to Hamilton as the Ferrari challenge faded in the final stint of the race.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said Hamilton did nothing wrong - and it's difficult to disagree with him. The Briton was the race leader and his main focus was to manage his tyres in the best way to secure victory.

Ultimately, it's down to Rosberg to do a better job than Hamilton in qualifying - as he did on the majority of the occasions last year - and that will put him in a position to dictate the pace on Sunday afternoon.

2) Should Mercedes use team orders to deal with the threat posed by Ferrari?

BEN ANDERSON: If Ferrari gets to the point where it can genuinely challenge for victory at every race then I'm afraid team orders are inevitable.

As Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff said after the Chinese Grand Prix: "It is not just the guys [drivers] out there, but 1000 people working on those cars. And if you ever come to the call of interfering between the two of them, because we risk to lose a race win, we would do that."

But that doesn't mean we're going to see one driver suddenly slowing down so the other can win, a la Rubens Barrichello for Michael Schumacher in Austria 2002, or Felipe Massa for Fernando Alonso at the German GP of 2010.

Mercedes is keenly aware of the need to allow its drivers to race freely for the greater good of the sport. But that approach will alter slightly if it needs to make a sacrifice in order to guarantee victory over a rival.

It's not what should happen, but it's what will happen if the Ferrari threat grows too great. F1 teams exist to win first of all. Everything else (including racing) is of secondary concern.

LAWRENCE BARRETTO: Mercedes has always been keen to offer both its drivers equal opportunities and steer clear of team orders.

And with 16 races to go, it's pretty early to be considering changing that policy, especially considering Mercedes has two one-twos and one two-three to show for its opening three races.

But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff hinted at the weekend that the team's policy could change in light of the growing threat of Ferrari.

Ultimately, Mercedes' goal is to win both the drivers' and constructors' championship to protect its investment.

So if Ferrari continues to close the gap, thus putting Mercedes' title ambitions in doubt, the Brackley-based team will inevitably turn to team orders because at the end of the day, winning is what matters.

EDD STRAW: It should be willing to use them, but there's no compelling evidence that Ferrari is strong enough to be a consistent threat in the title race just yet.

If Ferrari stays in the hunt and improves faster than Mercedes, then a decision might have to be made. Based on current form, that would be to back Lewis Hamilton.

For now, measures such as letting its second car pit first when under threat - as Mercedes did in China at the second round of stops with Rosberg - are the most likely manifestation of this.

Where possible, the policy of letting its drivers race should always prevail within the bounds of ensuring the team gets the best-possible result. But there might come a time when pragmatism must prevail.

It's then down to the team to be honest about it rather than hiding behind synonyms for team orders.

3) Are team orders bad for F1?

LAWRENCE BARRETTO: Team orders will always exist because a team's aim is to win the title and in turn reward its staff for their hard work throughout the season in that pursuit.

But if Mercedes had employed team orders during the 2014 campaign, we would have been robbed of a season-long battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

We would not have seen the thrilling duel between the pair at the Bahrain Grand Prix or watched Hamilton pressurise Rosberg into a mistake at the Italian Grand Prix in the battle for the lead.

And what about the Belgian Grand Prix, when the two made contact at Spa? In the absence of any threat from the other teams, Mercedes' policy to be fair to both drivers made the season entertaining.

And when you then throw in occasions like the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix, when Ferrari asked Rubens Barrichello to hand the victory to Michael Schumacher to the disgust of the crowd, it's hard to argue how they can be good for the sport.

EDD STRAW: It depends how they are deployed.

Team tactics have always been part of grand prix racing, just as they are in road cycling. As we saw from 2004-10, when team orders were ludicrously banned, everyone's intelligence was insulted by those involved having to cover it up.

Races like Austria 2002, when Rubens Barrichello had to back off to hand Michael Schumacher victory and did so exiting the last corner, are destructive. That was the wrong way to do things, especially as Schumacher was already 21 points clear of his nearest rival (over 50 points in today's money) after the opening five races of the season.

But in a tight title fight, I have no problem with them being invoked provided it is done honestly. Equally, in a race situation where one driver holding up the other will compromise the overall result, team orders are valid.

After all, nobody had any problem with Felipe Massa backing off in Brazil 2007 to hand Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen the title - and rightly so.

The key is that teams use team orders on a case-by-case basis, but not automatically to privilege one driver who must always finish ahead of the other regardless of context.

BEN ANDERSON: Like any fan of the sport I would prefer to see every driver race freely, and therefore I am instinctively against team orders.

However, they have always existed, and will always exist, all the while Formula 1 is a team sport.

After all, F1 teams have a clear responsibility - to their employees, their shareholders, and their sponsors - to do everything they can to win. If that means sacrificing one car for the competitive interests of another, so be it.

There were attempts to ban such practices outright in recent years, but we simply ended up with ludicrous coded radio messages - "Fernando is faster than you" - and subsequent barefaced denials of the obvious.

This is arguably worse for F1 than simply allowing team orders to take place as they always have.

I can just about stomach that. What I cannot countenance is the sort of thing we saw from Ferrari in 2002, where it simply decreed one driver should always beat the other until the title was won - even though there was no threat from a rival squad.

In my opinion this was tantamount to race fixing, which is unconscionable in any sport.