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Toto Wolff smirked as he pointed out that a McLaren title victory was also a championship success for Mercedes. While the Austrian's outfit may have missed out on Formula 1 constructors' championship glory this year, the team that did win it have used engines manufactured by Mercedes.

McLaren have dominated the season and, at the Singapore Grand Prix, made certain of their 10th teams' title. They now sit second on the all-time list of the sport's most successful teams, one ahead now of Williams who have won the championship nine times but still some way off Ferrari and their 17 successes over the decades.

Mercedes have been supplying F1 engines for decades but only entered the sport as a works outfit much more recently, starting racing in 2010. Since he joined as team-principal and a significant shareholder, Wolff has guided the Silver Arrows to eight constructors' titles but they haven't tasted such success since 2021.

But he takes some comfort from the fact Mercedes have a close working relationship with the sport's current dominant force. McLaren have a long-term deal to use Mercedes power units and Wolff was quick to point that out when asked by Sky Sports for his reaction to the constructors' championship being sewn up in Singapore.

He said: "If it's not us that can win the championship, then obviously a McLaren powered by a Mercedes engine is something good. Whatever our shortcomings, they were for sure not on the engine side. So yeah, a McLaren-Mercedes as constructors' champion is good."

Attention now turns to the drivers' title race where things are much tighter. Oscar Piastri still leads the championship but has seen his advantage over team-mate Lando Norris cut in each of the last three races. He is currently 22 points clear of the Brit with six rounds, including three Sprint races, remaining.

The banged wheels in Singapore as Norris overtook his team-mate, leaving Piastri frustrated. But that was one of very few flashpoints in what has been an unusually cordial relationship between two direct title rivals within the same team. Wolff knows all about how difficult it can be to deal with two drivers pushing for personal glory and has praised McLaren chief executive Zak Brown and team principal Andrea Stella for their handling of the situation up to now.

The Austrian said: "I've seen that movie a few times. I think how Andrea and Zak are doing it is actually quite good - they're talking about it and managing it in a very transparent way. But it gets slim, and it's going to come to a situation where a few points will matter.

"Then they'll start to calculate and back-calculate, and I guess the elbows are going to come out a bit more - that's when it starts to get interesting. These guys are on top of it. The management at McLaren is on top of it, and for us as fans, it's going to be interesting to watch."