History has created a monster Mercedes can't control

How to reconcile the burning individual ambition of two elite Formula 1 drivers with their team's imperative to achieve the best collective result possible, without imposing a directive that will neutralise the sporting spectacle to which they all have a duty of care?

It seems Mercedes may have finally reached the point at which it feels this delicate balance of disharmony can no longer be maintained, after Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided while fighting for victory on the last lap of the Austrian Grand Prix.

This collision provided the thrilling denouement to a race that seemed Hamilton's to lose from the start. He had pole; Rosberg started down in sixth thanks to a grid penalty, and with Jenson Button's high-flying McLaren-Honda providing an early buffer to the pack, everything seemed to be falling Hamilton's way early on.

But the race came back towards Rosberg when it became clear his two-stop strategy was actually quicker than Hamilton's planned one-stop race.

"Lewis was ahead on the road and the one-stop seemed to be the better strategy for the leader," explained Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

"We weren't sure how far Ferrari would go and whether they would try a one-stop, so we kept him out.

"His times were competitive in comparison to the two Ferraris. We didn't care so much about Nico and the Red Bulls, because they were on a two-stop."

Hamilton emerged from his pitstop on lap 21 of 71 a handful of seconds behind Rosberg. Hamilton lost a second to a slow left-rear change, but that made little difference to his situation at this stage. He'd gone 11 laps further than Rosberg on his first set of tyres, so strategic advantage seemed his.

Then Sebastian Vettel's right rear tyre exploded on the main straight as he began the 27th lap. After five laps spent behind the safety car, the race resumed. Hamilton tracked Rosberg closely - remaining comfortably within two seconds of the leader, knowing his team-mate would have to stop again.

"At a certain stage we changed opinion," added Wolff. "We felt the two-stop was actually the safer way to finish the race. This was why we converted and brought Lewis into a situation which put him behind Nico [in the final stint]."

Hamilton was within 1.254s of Rosberg when he came in for a second time on lap 54. His stop was again slow (the front left stuck this time), and after Rosberg made his own second stop a lap later he emerged ahead, thanks partly to Hamilton's delay and partly to a poor out-lap from the reigning world champion that included a mistake at Turn 2.

Had Hamilton been cleaner on his first lap with that final set of soft tyres, and had he not suffered two separate delays at his stops, perhaps this race would have ended very differently.

As it was, Hamilton now had 16 laps to chase down the sister Mercedes. Max Verstappen's Red Bull actually led at this stage, on account of seeing out the sort of one-stop strategy Mercedes abandoned with Hamilton.

Rosberg swept past on the outside line into Turn 3 to retake the lead with 10 laps to run, after Verstappen had spiritedly defended the inside line into Turn 2 and run Rosberg wide.

Hamilton had to wait two more laps before making a pass of his own on the Red Bull - blasting by on the run up the hill towards that same right-hander as they both lapped Jolyon Palmer's Renault.

They finished lap 63 with Rosberg leading Hamilton by 1.517s. Hamilton complained over team radio about having to chase Rosberg down using a harder compound of tyre than his rival, but in actual fact it was Hamilton's choice to pick one less set of super-softs for this grand prix compared to Rosberg, and Mercedes clearly felt 17 laps on the ultra-soft was a risk too far.

Ultimately it mattered not. Hamilton tore after his team-mate and with three laps to go closed to within half a second. Late-race traffic threatened to thwart Hamilton's efforts, but starting the final lap there was still only six tenths in it, and Rosberg was clearly struggling, fighting against the fact his brake-by-wire system had overheated and slipped into what Mercedes termed 'passive mode'.

He was slow through Turn 9 to begin the lap, and again at Turn 1.

"It was definitely costly for him," said Hamilton. "He obviously turned in early, clipped the kerb, bounced and then couldn't get on the power.

"It's very easy when those sorts of things happen to follow and then not get the exit, but I managed to keep my shit together and do the corner just as I did previously, and got a really good exit."

After the helter-skelter of the previous 70 laps it all came down to this. Hamilton slipstreamed Rosberg on the drag up to Turn 2, but Rosberg covered the inside.

Hamilton went for the outside line and moved ahead as the two cars reached the braking zone. But Rosberg chose to make an unusually late attempt to turn in, squeezing Hamilton to the outer edge of the circuit.

Hamilton attempted to continue his trajectory around the outside of Rosberg's car, but they made contact, which spat Hamilton into the run-off area on the outside.

He skated across the grass and rejoined the circuit, just as Rosberg's front wing folded underneath the front of his car as a result of the collision, allowing Hamilton to slip past into Turn 3 and take victory.

Rosberg limped home fourth, losing further positions to Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen as the Mercedes left a trail of debris on the circuit.

Wolff slammed a desk in the Mercedes garage in frustration. Then the inquest began.

"I drove as wide as possible within the white lines so I left a larger space - three cars could've came on the inside there," said Hamilton.

"I'm on the inside, I have the right to defend," countered Rosberg, who felt he had "everything under control" with his brakes, despite the BBW problem.

"I don't need to take the ideal line. I had Lewis on the outside and I wanted to keep him there, always leaving him track space. That was always the intention.

"The collision completely took me by surprise. I didn't expect Lewis to turn in."

The stewards decided Rosberg hadn't left Hamilton enough space, despite his supposed intentions - ruling that he have 10s added to his race time for causing the collision, and also reprimanding him for driving his damaged car to the finish in a dangerous condition.

This was the third major incident between these two since Mercedes began dominating F1 in 2014, and the second in the past five races of the current campaign, and it prompted Wolff to declare publicly that he will consider imposing team orders on his two drivers because "this needs to end".

In fact this is the fourth time Hamilton's and Rosberg's cars have made contact of some form during a race this year, and the longer they are permitted to fight the more likely it seems they simply cannot be trusted to do so without driving into one another.

Perhaps that's the inevitable consequence of the dynamic Mercedes has created by steadfastly allowing its two charges to race each other freely. Every time they have battled closely on track there has been some sort of controversy, which has then fed further escalation down the road.

Wolff referenced Bahrain 2014 as the ideal sort of race Mercedes wants to see from its drivers, but arguably that grand prix lies at the root of its present predicament.

Hamilton got the best of that battle, with several well-judged but forceful moves - three that forced Rosberg briefly off track on the outside exiting Turn 4; the other an aggressive chop into Turn 2 after cutting back underneath Rosberg to repel an attack at Turn 1.

This set the tone for their future fights and gave Hamilton a potentially crucial psychological edge in battle, as Mercedes laudably refused to impose team orders for the sake of F1's audience.

But Mercedes faced internal strife managing the rules of engagement, forced to impose restrictions on use of particular engine modes at certain times and issue specific guidelines on strategy to avoid handing one driver an 'unfair' edge over the other.

When Hamilton then refused a team order to let Rosberg past during that summer's Hungarian GP, Rosberg went berserk - feeling he had been unfairly compromised in that race, in which he finished behind Hamilton despite starting on pole.

In the following race in Belgium came the first major flashpoint, as the two collided while disputing the lead on the first lap. Rosberg tried to go round the outside of Hamilton at Les Combes, but this time decided to stay the course rather than back out. He lost some of his front wing, Hamilton lost the race, Rosberg was fined by Mercedes.

There followed a long period of calm through the rest of 2014 and the early part of '15, but as Hamilton closed in on a third world title the tension built once more.

In Japan last year Rosberg had pole position, but lost ground to Hamilton at the start. He attempted to hold on around the outside of the first two corners, but found himself hung out to dry (again), as Hamilton gently eased him off the circuit at the exit.

"That's what happens when you're on the outside," said Hamilton afterwards.

Determined not to get outmuscled again two races later, Rosberg stood firm on the outside as Hamilton attacked into Turn 1 after the start of the US GP. They collided without serious consequence, but Rosberg bemoaned Hamilton "trying to drive me off the track".

Hamilton won that race and with it his third world championship. He claimed a lack of grip on the wet inside line sent him accidentally into his team-mate, but Rosberg was furious, Wolff called Hamilton's move "too hard", and the rules of battle were re-enforced internally ahead of the next race in Mexico.

The next time Rosberg found himself inside Hamilton at Turn 1 (in this season's opening race in Australia) he gained revenge by forcing Hamilton wide (with a brief bit of contact) as Raikkonen's Ferrari overtook them both after the start.

When Rosberg tried to drive around the outside of Hamilton at Turn 1 in Canada several races later, they made contact again and this time Rosberg was forced wide.

In between times they collided spectacularly on the first lap of May's Spanish GP, as Rosberg was slowed by an incorrect engine setting exiting Turn 3 then closed the door aggressively as Hamilton attempted to drive inside him on the exit.

Both called that a racing incident, so did the stewards, Wolff refused to apportion blame, but Mercedes came away from a race that should have resulted in a dominant one-two finish with zero points.

The pattern over these past two years suggests Rosberg has found himself one step behind Hamilton repeatedly in crucial wheel-to-wheel situations, and has had to become steadily more aggressive, to prove he is no soft touch.

All this history is relevant when you consider what happened at Turn 2 on the final lap at the Red Bull Ring.

Rosberg held the lead after a brilliant recovery drive - a performance he felt was "one of my best" in F1 - and he was desperate not to let victory slip away.

Hamilton saw his one chance to reclaim a race that he surely felt belonged to him, after taking pole and dominating the early stages.

'That's what happens when you're on the outside' looked like Rosberg's rationale for the way he chose to defend his lead. After the number of times he's suffered at Hamilton's hands, one can sympathise with the logic.

But he pushed things just a fraction too far again, running into Hamilton, compromising his own race, spoiling another Mercedes one-two, and allowing Hamilton to be the victim despite being the aggressor.

This moment was several seasons in the making, and its ramifications could be widespread.

Mercedes may finally choose to lay down proper team orders to prevent a recurrence, in which case collective duty will defeat individual ambition and Hamilton and Rosberg will no longer be allowed to race each other freely.

F1 will be all the poorer for that if it happens, but no one can argue they didn't see it coming.

And how oddly fitting it would be if an incident at the same venue where Ferrari caused teams orders outrage by letting Michael Schumacher defeat Rubens Barrichello in the 2002 Austrian GP should be the straw that finally breaks Toto Wolff's back.