Why hopes of a dramatic F1 title battle may rest on a so far unbreakable relationship

Lewis Hamilton had set the practice pace, but things had turned around by the time the first Q3 laps had been completed, with his team-mate now heading the times. One final effort coming up - maximum attack, maximum pressure.

The Mercedes flew through the first sector, rapid as ever, but early in the second sector things went suddenly wrong. It was off the track, the yellow flags flying. Hamilton came across the incident and could not improve his time.

The mood between the Mercedes drivers was frosty despite the heat. Questions about their relationship abounded - would it threaten the team's decisive advantage at the head of Formula 1 field?

The above did happen, but not at the Red Bull Ring last weekend, despite Valtteri Bottas also having an off on his final Q3 lap, while running ahead of Hamilton. The difference between that incident and the dying stages of qualifying for the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix was that last weekend Hamilton stayed on the gas - but was still unable to beat his team-mate's time.

The result was Bottas's 12th career pole and his third at the Austrian track where he has now led 143 laps, the most of any current driver by 84, although Nico Rosberg - Hamilton's team-mate at Monaco in 2014 - still leads the way on 144 since it returned to the F1 calendar in '14.

That wasn't the end, though, as Hamilton had improved his best Q3 time despite passing his team-mate floundering on the grass on the inside of the fast left of Turn 6. We know what happened next - Hamilton initially escaped punished because he had apparently passed conflicting green and yellow signals, before new footage from a 360-degree camera mounted on his car was spotted by Red Bull and the world champion suddenly had to line-up fifth, not many minutes before leaving to take the pre-race grid.

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In the post-qualifying press conference, conducted via Zoom for those journalists not permitted to attend the race due the coronavirus protocols, all was indeed well between the Mercedes drivers, with Hamilton congratulating his team-mate for his "fantastic job today with his lap - it's amazing".

After the wild Austrian GP - well, wild second half anyway - there was another potentially puzzling dynamic to solve between the Mercedes pair. As they raced to the flag ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, Hamilton needed to build a five-second gap to keep his position and was at risk of losing third as well, which he ultimately did to McLaren driver Lando Norris.

Mercedes considered asking Bottas to wave Hamilton through, but decided it was too complex and too risky, so they ran to the flag with the race winner in front all the way. But a lap 69 some 2.389s slower than the one before - Bottas's fastest lap of the race - was questioned afterwards, with Bottas explaining he was simply slowing when arriving at the scene of Daniil Kvyat's late-race retirement at Turn 1.

"I know Valtteri better than probably a lot of other people - being that we're so close over these last few years. He's a pure racer and wants to win through pure, pure merit. And I believe that even when he says that, you know he doesn't need to say that" Lewis Hamilton

"When you're in the lead you of course want to minimise any risk," said Bottas. "And you obviously have to slow down at least half a second and ideally more for double yellows. So, I did that.

"And then I also knew that there's going to be an opportunity to try and go for the fastest lap of the race, which would be silly not to, even though we couldn't use the kerbs, but at least to try within the limits. So, I was charging the [battery] pack as well."

Hamilton wasn't having any conspiracy talk, saying in his own session: "I just saw Valtteri just now and honestly, I know Valtteri better than probably a lot of other people - being that we're so close over these last few years. And that's not something that was on my mind and something that I would ever think that he would do.

"I know that he wouldn't do something like that. He's a pure racer and wants to win through pure, pure merit. And I believe that even when he says that, you know he doesn't need to say that."

So, two potential flashpoints in two days for Mercedes, and no issue between its drivers. It's been known for some time that Bottas's position at the team is strengthened by his better relationship with Hamilton, than the team-mate war that emerged in 2014 with Rosberg across the garage - the Monaco qualifying incident a crucial part of that breakdown.

Indeed, Bottas explained how Mercedes had examined the events of last weekend's race in its aftermath, conducting the usual debrief to establish what had happened and how things might have been improved.

"In F1 many things can happen and sometimes things just go the way they go," he said. "And we just had a debrief, a very open talk about everything.

"We went through the race in terms of my point of view and Lewis's point of view and the team's point of view - and there is no tension that I'm aware of. He is pretty experienced, Lewis, in this sport, so he knows things can happen. So, no tension.

"We had a good team result in the end. Obviously, it could have been better, maybe. But we're still leading the constructors' and I won the race, so it could have been a lot worse start to the season."

Ordinarily, Mercedes would have conducted its debrief and then decamped to Silverstone for the British GP, but the results of the pandemic means it remains at the Red Bull Ring for this weekend's inaugural Styrian GP. So now the team, and its rivals, will be able to put what it learnt from the first race into practice for the second - on precisely the same course.

But Bottas now has an early advantage in the title race - one that is increased by Hamilton being bumped down to fourth at the death last weekend. So far, F1 has only confirmed eight races on the reformed 2020 calendar - the minimum number required to call a world championship result. More are expected, and some will be announced in the coming weeks, but given the ongoing nature of the pandemic, Chase Carey's "15-18" race target remains ambitious.

None of this is to say the Bottas-Hamilton relationship will break down under the added pressure of a compacted season, but it's a logical consideration, and the next stage is set to play out immediately. For the first time in F1's history it will effectively stage a repeat grand prix.

So, the question is whether the result will be the same. More than likely, it will. Mercedes took a 1-2 on the road last weekend that it only lost because of the dramatic circumstances of the second half of the race. Had the safety car not intervened, and the order remained as it was before lap 26 when Kevin Magnussen's retirement triggered the first intervention, Red Bull's Alex Albon would have more than likely finished approaching 45s adrift of the leaders.

PLUS: Tim Wright: Safety cars saved a boring Austrian GP

"It's going to be interesting to see," Williams head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said of the repeat race last weekend. "Normally, the teams are very good at extracting the performance based on a day's worth of testing and inevitably, the quick cars therefore line up at the front.

"So you'd say there is a good chance it will be a repeat, but it's not something we've ever done, or certainly not recently. But at the moment, you'd have to say that some sort of rough repeat is probably likely.

Hamilton now must strike back at Bottas, who has a lead to protect and try and extend. The former has tended to flourish the longer a campaign goes on, while the latter is yet to prove he can keep his game high for long enough

"But who knows? I mean, I'm sure we will have learned things this weekend that we can apply. There's always something at the end of a Friday, you wish you'd done and look at and we've got chance to do that."

In addition to the teams putting into practice what they now know about their 2020 cars at the Red Bull Ring, with reliability further to the fore after last weekend's attritional season opener, there are other factors that could play a part in twisting the Styrian GP's nature.

The weather, often a factor at this track, could shake things up - with storms forecast at the time of writing to potentially impact qualifying. Robson reckoned the calm wind last Saturday increased the power of a tow for the grid-setting session, which could also be different for the upcoming event.

Then there's the upgrades some teams will bring and others will work on the new bits they sampled last weekend. All eyes will surely be on Ferrari's fast-tracked developments given the deficit it currently faces.

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What almost certainly won't change is Mercedes' ultimate pace - it remains F1's benchmark, and by some margin. But it seems reliability could well be a problem it must manage again in Austria Part 2.

"Going into the race, we were expecting it because it seems to be a feature of the model," Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said of the gearbox problems that struck the team during Sunday's race, which had first become apparent when Bottas's FP2 running was ended early by the issue.

"And so at the moment, if we build the car and run it, this problem will appear at some point. It's a question of how soon."

This issue, which the team may yet be able to address given it concerns the way it currently has the W11 arranged, has the potential to wreck Mercedes' weekend and therefore impact the title battle.

Combined with the pressures of the compacted season, where any failure to finish will be doubly punished, this adds an extra dynamic to watch between the two Mercedes drivers - as the way they responded to the team's calls to keep off the kerbs in last Sunday's race was fascinating.

Hamilton now must strike back at Bottas, who has a lead to protect and try and extend. The former has tended to flourish the longer a campaign goes on, while the latter is yet to prove he can keep his game high for long enough. Both of those historical factors could yet be inverted if the season ends up being much shorter than usual.

So, the post-race one takeaway at the head of the field is this: if Mercedes' position remains as dominant as its Austrian GP performance suggests on pace alone, the Hamilton-Bottas relationship and its flashpoints, smooth or otherwise, could provide the backdrop drama to another intra-Mercedes title battle.