Mercedes technical director, James Allison has strongly denied claims of driver favouritism influencing his team.

Various tactical decisions have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, and while fans love the battles between drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, it is feared that this is allowing the likes of Lewis Hamilton to gain ground.

However, there are also claims doing the rounds that the team is beginning to favour one driver over the other.

Indeed, in the aftermath of the Monaco Grand Prix, Pitpass was one of several news outlets to receive an anonymous email - said to have been sent on behalf of "hundreds of concerned Formula 1 fans who are deeply questioning the integrity and fairness within the Mercedes team".

Referring to the Monaco event, the (don't laugh) 'Justic for' email claimed that "Antonelli's engineer (Bono) warned his driver about the pitlane issue in advance, meaning they're well aware of the issue", that "Marcus (Dudley, Russell's engineer - Ed) gave incomplete instructions during the safety car ("stay out" without full context)", "George repeatedly asked for clarification on tires vs. staying out and received no reply", "George offered to serve a stop-and-go penalty in the pits" to clear his time, and Marcus falsely told George the penalty had already been served (claiming the previous stop was over five seconds), which was incorrect and led to the drive-through" and finally, "When George pressed about the penalty at a vital moment, Toto Wolff intervened on the radio saying "let's talk about it later", shifting the attention. Which caused him the loss of a likely podium and all the points."

However, X (seriously), further claims that "In China, after dominating FP1 and the Sprint, George's car stopped in Q3 due to an "incorrect ignition sequence." The car has reportedly never fully recovered.", that "In Japan, wrong setup ruined qualifying; a safety car and software glitch during the restart dropped him from contention for P3.", that "In Miami, flawed qualifying strategy and a race engineer error on strategy caused him to struggle early; he adjusted his setup mid-race and recovered pace, but it was too late." and "In Canada, George secured Sprint Pole, Sprint Win, and main race Pole, leading until lap 30 when battery issues forced retirement, costing vital points and widening the championship gap to around 40+ points."

"To conclude, the problems with the team's overall behaviour far outweigh any issues attributable to Marcus as an individual," the email ended. "The penalty mistake was also by no means solely his responsibility and negligence. As loyal fans who value the sport's professionalism and integrity, we are deeply concerned and questioning the team's fairness and transparency."

"People are very invested in the people that they support and they want their driver to prosper above all others," says James Allison in the team's Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show. "All I can say is if you ever wanted to understand where it (favouritism) sits on our psyche, you'd need to come and work in a team.

"Because if you were lucky enough to come and work in a team, you would instantly be imbued with the culture of that team and you would understand how utterly alien that thought is to anyone in the team. And when we hear it, it's like we're hearing another language.

"It is in all of our interests that both our drivers prosper," he continues. "Actually, we're ambivalent about which one is better than the other. We want a 1-2 in every race and we don't care the order.

"The only point where we would start to have an opinion is if one driver is mathematically incapable of winning a championship and the other driver is in a fight with a third-party driver. At that point, the team has a right to an opinion.

"Up until that point, we just want both our players to be right up there every single race," he insists. "Because our main championship, weirdly, is not the drivers' championship. It's the constructors' championship. If we're lucky enough to win a bonus, we win it on the basis of the constructors' position, not the drivers'. We don't get anything for that.

"So, everything we care about is constructors-oriented and favouritism makes zero sense to us in that respect. We just want maximum points from both the drivers at all times."