Kimi Raikkonen wasn't the only driver called on to assist his teammate on Sunday, for while the Iceman was told to yield to Sebastian Vettel, at Mercedes Valtteri Bottas ordered not to challenge Lewis Hamilton.

Having made one attempt to pass the Briton, as he shaped up to make a second, the familiar voice of team strategist James Vowles came over Bottas' radio.

"Valtteri, it's James, please hold position… I'm sorry," said Vowles.

Explaining the call, team boss Toto Wolff subsequently told Sky Sports: "First of all we didn't have the quickest car here and we need to progress for the next races because that is the most important.

"It was still raining at the time and the fight was so intense," he added. "There was all to lose, and with the bad luck in the last couple of races the scenario of losing a car or two was just something that I didn't want to even envisage."

Asked at the subsequent media debrief if the order was given because Hamilton is the definitive number one driver at Mercedes, Wolff insisted: "No, absolutely not.

"If it had been the other way around with Valtteri in the lead and Lewis second we would have made the same call, an identical call," he added. "It was about bringing him home, irrespective of who is in front."

"We always said that if the championship goes into its last third or last quarter and there's a big difference between the drivers, we might make these unpopular calls," he admitted. "But it's much too early in the season to do this. Today we made it in order to bring a one-two home. We would have done it the other way around."

Asked if there was any ill feeling from Bottas after the call, the Austrian said: "We had eye contact on the podium, and I think it's pretty clear to us that what I said to Valtteri is something that I would also say in the team. I would have done the same thing the other way around.

"I think this is the transparency we have in the team that it would make no difference. It was important to score the double podium, the one-two, to recover some of the points we lost through bad luck."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Hockenheim, here.