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When Mercedes locked out the front row for the Malaysian Grand Prix with Lewis Hamilton on pole, it seemed all but certain that the team would end the race with another one-two finish and wrap up their third consecutive Constructors’ Championship.

But when the lights went out things rapidly went wrong for the Silver Arrows, as Nico Rosberg got caught up in an incident between Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen and ended up dropping to the very back of the field.

Fortunately the German’s car was undamaged and Rosberg set about carving his way through the the back of the field. Before long he had returned to the points and closing on the back of Kimi Räikkönen, with Mercedes now looking at a first and fourth with Hamilton leading by some twenty seconds from Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen.

But just as Mercedes seemed to be in the clear once more, tragedy struck the other Silver Arrow of Lewis Hamilton in the form of a violent engine failure, sending him spluttering onto the runoff at Turn 1 with flames rising from the exhaust.

For Mercedes, the anguish of recording their first mechanical DNF since Russia last year was clear – not only had the team been forced to delay celebrating its third World Constructors’ Championship and missed out once again on breaking McLaren’s 1988 record of eleven consecutive wins in a season, but it had done so with its lead car in flames in front of a de facto home crowd.

“It’s hard to know how to sum up a day like today,” Toto Wolff said after the race. “I just have no words for what happened to Lewis. We all feel his pain. This is a mechanical sport, with so much technology, but sometimes you just get blindsided by situations with no rational explanation.

“But we take a forensic approach to our work in how we build the engines and how we analyse failures. We have always done and we will do so again. Our guys will get to the bottom of what happened and learn from it.”

Paddy Lowe added “we’re all absolutely devastated for [Hamilton]. As a team we’ve worked incredibly hard to improve reliability over the past few years and have succeeded in doing so.

“Indeed, this was our first race failure of the year.”

Mercedes’ only consolation came when Rosberg made a bold move past Kimi Räikkönen through Turn 2 to get himself back into the podium positions, but even this was soured when the stewards deemed the move too aggressive and handed Rosberg a ten-second time penalty for making contact with the Ferrari.

Nevertheless, with some twenty laps to go to the finish Rosberg was easily able to open up the necessary gap to Räikkönen to keep his third place, thereby extending his lead at the top of the championship to 23 points over Hamilton.

James Matthews

Toto Wolff has said that Mercedes is on the brink of a “very special” weekend in Malaysia, as it stands ready to take a third consecutive World Constructors’ Championship in front of a home crowd for partner Petronas.

Mercedes currently stands 222 points clear of Red Bull with 258 remaining on the table, and can wrap up the title in Sepang with just a win and any other points finish. While it is still mathematically possible for Red Bull to push back Mercedes’ celebrations to the next round at Suzuka – a 1-2 or a win and third for the Austrian team would do it – their chances of delaying the inevitable hang on Mercedes either missing out on the win or not bringing both cars home in the points – something that has not happened since May’s Spanish Grand Prix.

But despite the odds being stacked vastly in its favour, Mercedes is still erring on the side of caution ahead of what is traditionally one of the most demanding and unpredictable races of the season.

“It’s a very challenging weekend,” said Paddy Lowe. “The heat and humidity make life tough for the drivers, team and cars alike, while the track action can often be affected by rain.”

Lowe also noted Mercedes’ “hugely disappointing” 2015 visit to Sepang – in which Sebastian Vettel beat both Silver Arrows to the win – as something that will likely be on Mercedes’ mind this weekend, with Toto Wolff adding that the team “will need to push hard” to avoid another such defeat.

However, the biggest threat to a third Mercedes crown this weekend could in fact come from the team itself, as the pitching title battle between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton enters its final, gruelling phase.

After Rosberg’s three wins on the go in Belgium, Italy and Singapore, many have begun to tip the German as the new championship favourite, and even Hamilton himself has admitted he has “no idea” if he’ll be able to reclaim the title momentum if Rosberg maintains his current run of form.

But with only eight points separating him from his teammate, the prospect of Hamilton conceding the championship with six rounds still to go is unthinkable. Neither he nor Rosberg will be prepared to yield so much as a single point at this late stage – all Mercedes asks is that the pair keep their battle clean until the Constructors’ Championship is safe.

James Matthews