Is the Mercedes F1 dynasty finally starting to wobble?

Last weekend in Austria, the Silver Arrows suffered their first double mechanical failure since returning to Formula One in 2010 as a works team. But Lewis Hamilton, chasing a record sixth British Grand Prix victory at Silverstone on Sunday, has shrugged off the setback as an aberration rather than any deeper cause for alarm.

“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” said Hamilton, who fell one point behind title rival Sebastian Vettel after retiring in Spielberg with a fuel pressure problem. “The spirit in the team is stronger than it has ever been. While it was a painful experience, it actually brought us closer. Coming here, there have been some fixes already. I’m confident we have done everything possible to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

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Not that Hamilton could give any guarantees. A theme of the 2018 season so far has been Mercedes’ uncharacteristic gaffes, first in denying Hamilton an apparently certain win in Melbourne due to a computer glitch, then in failing to bring him into the pits during a virtual safety car period in Austria, with the upshot that he dropped from first to fourth before retirement.

A once-impregnable team is finally showing glimpses of fallibility, with James Vowles, Mercedes’ chief strategist, giving a humiliating apology to Hamilton over team radio for the latest mistake. Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal, criticised the four-time champions for putting undue pressure on Vowles, saying it was “bizarre for somebody to throw themselves under the bus”.

There have been reliability issues at MercedesCredit: getty images

“I hope the next mistake isn’t in a title decider, but I can’t predict what’s going to happen,” Hamilton said. “What I can say is that I feel I have the best team of strategists behind me. Look at how many wins I have had here. We have had far, far more successes than failures, and there is no way to be perfect.”

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It is a concern for Mercedes, though, that their painful lapse in the Styrian mountains came after they had just introduced an expensive engine upgrade, which had already been delayed because of reliability concerns. “We’re human, so naturally every single individual in the team will have that nervousness at the back of their mind,” Hamilton acknowledged. “But as a driver, as an athlete, as a competitor, I cannot allow that to interfere with my weekend.”

Here in sun-baked Northamptonshire, Hamilton has history in his sights, with a chance to pull clear of Alain Prost and the late Jim Clark as the British Grand Prix’s most decorated driver, on six wins. Having prevailed at Silverstone for the past four years, crowd-surfing in the vast galleries after a lights-to-flag victory 12 months ago, he hardly wants for confidence on this track, still struggling to cement its place on the calendar beyond 2019 due to a dispute over the race fee.

It is understood that Hamilton has finally agreed a £40 million-a-year contract to keep him at Mercedes until the end of 2020, although there will be no official confirmation this weekend. He was more interested in discussing England’s progress at the World Cup, claiming that he would be heading straight to Moscow if the team made the final. There is a freedom, clearly, in having a £20m private jet on stand-by.

At beleaguered McLaren, meanwhile, the self-examination continued after racing director Eric Boullier resigned for his part in 3½ years of wretched under-performance. Asked when the team would next be challenging for wins, chief executive Zak Brown said: “This is going to take some time to fix, so I think we are years away. I don’t know whether that is two or 10 or somewhere in between. We have to be very realistic and honest with ourselves.”