The biggest challenge now facing Mercedes in F1

The all-conquering Mercedes team celebrating a constructors' championship victory well ahead of a season finale is not unusual. But there were a few aspects about last weekend's triumph at Imola that stood out from the six that had come before.

And, buried in all the bonhomie, was a lingering problem - which Mercedes is now tasked with addressing.

First of all, Mercedes' 2020 constructors' title is more momentous than the rest. The team has won the championship in this terrible year of years, where so many previously predictable scripts have been ripped up and replaced thanks to the wretched pandemic. That there is a 2020 championship taking place at all is incredible.

Second, by winning for a seventh successive time, Mercedes has bettered Ferrari's record of six constructors' triumphs on the trot from the turn of the millennium - with one bit of scarlet carbonfibre doing its best to cling on as the Black Arrows surged past last Sunday, as much as Valtteri Bottas will regret that it did. This new record is also incredible - it is now domination never witnessed before in Formula 1. And whatever anyone's feelings on one team enjoying so much success, it must be respected.

There was another nugget of history in Lewis Hamilton's win too - he has now equalled Michael Schumacher's record of 72 wins for a single F1 team. He has also now led 5,000 F1 laps, Toto Wolff has overseen 100 wins as team principal (for the three Mercedes took in 2013 he was managing partner), the squad has reached 100 wins alone in the turbo hybrid era, and cars using the manufacturer's engines have now secured 500 F1 podiums.

But Hamilton matching Schumacher - again - stood out. Because it felt for so long that what the legendary German created at Ferrari might never be built again, at Ferrari or elsewhere, let alone bettered. Hamilton also reached this latest milestone at Imola, the circuit where, tragically, the Schumacher F1 era really got going, as the Ayrton Senna era was brutally cut short.

It felt like a particularly emotional weekend all around at Imola. As the second wave of COVID-19 bites horribly in Europe, with fresh lockdowns announced or looming as the event wore on, fans had been banned from attending just three days before it got underway. Uncertainty was everywhere, but there was positive emotion on display too, even if it was in the ultimately trivial arena of sport.

It had Mercedes celebrating its record successes of course, but there was also Renault's delight at another podium finish with Daniel Ricciardo, and the thrill of fine results too at AlphTauri and Alfa Romeo. Then there was the pain on display at Williams after George Russell's catastrophic safety car error...

But with the champion squad in particular, there was a sense of release. All that hard work rewarded at last. Mercedes winning may look metronomic on the outside, but it's the unseen effort that makes the difference.

"It has not only taken a toll on myself, but it has taken a toll on everybody who is involved in the project," Wolff said after the race, soaked in champagne. "Blood sweat and tears, that is going on behind closed doors, but you never see that. It seems like that we are rocking up on track and winning races, but the truth is there is so much sacrifice behind that. On such an afternoon it just compensates for everything."

The Schumacher-era Ferrari squad represents what happens when the band changes - or, by bringing in Kimi Raikkonen for 2007, breaks up

Mercedes' 2020 success is being achieved in possibly its best car creation yet - the crushingly-dominant W11. Add in the anti-racism cause its colour scheme promotes and F1 history has a car that cannot be ignored. But it is the result of monumental effort to stay ahead of other teams.

The engine, which it has been suggested to Autosport was in a more perilous reliability state when heading to the expected start of the season in Australia before the spring lockdowns gave Brixworth the chance to address this, was produced to overcome the resurgent, and now disappeared, threat from Ferrari. As was DAS, as was every tiny innovation that Mercedes piled on to ensure it kept winning - which it will surely now do in 2021 too thanks to the majority of the design being carried over.

But will the team win beyond that? It's a question worth asking because we know it is changing.

Wolff is on the hunt for his successor, poised to take a step backwards from the day-to-day team operations and upwards to a CEO or executive chairman-like role. Hamilton's contract for 2021 remains unsigned, and he hinted post-victory that "I don't even know if I'm going to be here next year".

Suggestions are becoming louder that the delay is a result of the team, Wolff and Hamilton wanting to wait until the 2020 championships are certain before formal negotiations start. Unlike in 2018, they will need to consider social distancing if they are to be done face-to-face, with travel also getting ever harder. Plus, there's the considerations regarding announcing multi-million pound deals at a time when so many people are facing economic hardships - Hamilton is conscious of this.

The Schumacher-era Ferrari squad represents what happens when the band changes - or, by bringing in Kimi Raikkonen for 2007, breaks up. The team had just got back to the front after the aberration year of single race tyre sets in 2005 when Schumacher departed, and while it went on to take the 2007 double with Raikkonen and the constructors' in 2008, it wasn't the same as before. And it has not been since key personnel such as Schumacher and Jean Todt departed or took different roles.

And that is the challenge now facing Mercedes.

It certainly has the capability to overcome such a task - as proved by its success in 2017, winning in the face of a technical rules change, which stumped Red Bull in 2014 and Ferrari back in 2005 and 2009.

It may take time to succeed in that challenge. But it doesn't have to look far for inspiration, with Mercedes' Formula E operation - which Wolff visited for its first races in Saudi Arabia instead of going to the 2019 Brazilian GP, at the same time seeing if he could leave his F1 team to triumph unsupervised - winning right at the end of its first season in the electric championship.

But, as with so much of life, in motorsport or elsewhere in the world, there is no guarantee of overcoming the challenge of change.