Don't slam Mercedes if it all goes wrong

It's not a question of if, but when. We know it, Mercedes chiefs know it and Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg know it.

At some point this season, with the team so clearly allowing both its men free reign to fight as hard as they want for the win, there's going to be trouble.

A misjudged passing manoeuvre, a bit of over-aggressiveness, or a genuine bit of nefariousness is going to result in some bits of broken bodywork, a decent result thrown away and a fair bit of post-race controversy.

And when it does happen, you can guarantee that there will be a long line of people standing up to shoot down the team bosses for allowing things to get out of control.

But the critics should all think twice before doing so.

Mercedes has been pretty bold in allowing its drivers such freedom to fight it out.

It would have been all too easy for the team to state that early-season reliability fears, plus the looming threat of Red Bull, would mean it had to maximise its opportunities early on.

It's inevitable that team-mates will sometimes clash © LAT

It would have been well within its rights to have told its drivers that they race until the first corner or the first pitstop, and then they have to hold position.

It would equally have been fully understandable if in Bahrain - judging by the intensity of the wheel-to-wheel battles between its two drivers at the front of the field - it called time on their duel well before the end. But it didn't.

Mercedes chiefs Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe made it clear to the world that both their men were and are free to race to the chequered flag. Both drivers are being given exactly the same opportunity; and both are trusted to not step over the line and do something silly.

Lowe said after the race that it would have been "terrible" for F1 if Mercedes had gone down the team orders route so preferred by many of its opposition in the past; and he is right.

For while we are braced for a season of single-car domination, what Mercedes has done by letting its drivers get on with it is help deliver the prospect of a thrillingly intense intra-team head-to-head fight.

Have we seen one as finely poised as this since the great Alain Prost/Ayrton Senna rivalry at McLaren?

Ferrari had no qualms about strict team orders in the early 2000s © LAT

It has become all too common to see a team in the kind of dominant position that Mercedes is in to lock down any advantage it's got - and swiftly call off racing to help with the longer-term ambitions.

Think about Multi 21. Think about Turkey 2010. Think about Hockenheim 2010. Think about Austria 2002. The battle lines of a number one and number two were clearly laid out on each occasion.

Team orders may well be fully justified at times, and an essential part of motor racing, but equally they are not what any fan wants to see. We all want to watch a race.

All our back-slapping of Mercedes for helping make its domination a mouth-watering prospect will mean nothing if we then start accusing it of mismanagement when the danger of its approach rears its ugly head.

It's putting big trust in its two men to do the right thing; race at the limit and not an inch over it. And there will be a time when that faith backfires. And when it does, we all have to accept that we can't have our cake and eat it.

It would be hypocritical to revel in the wonderful head-to-head battles that racing freedom between Hamilton and Rosberg will give us, and then get upset on the day the team did not intervene just before it all went wrong.

There will be hiccups along the way, but I'd always rather see the best man win it the hard way on the track than through the safety of a team radio call.