Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff has warned that McLaren has "set a precedent that is very difficult to undo" after ordering Oscar Piastri to let team-mate Lando Norris by in the Italian Grand Prix.
McLaren told Piastri to move aside for Norris in the final laps of the Monza race after the championship leader had got ahead when Norris lost time with a slow pitstop.
Norris had stopped a lap after Piastri, who McLaren was protecting against Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, only after a discussion with his race engineer assured him he would not be at risk of an undercut.
But a delay in releasing the car due to an issue on the front-left wheel meant Norris rejoined behind Piastri anyway - and McLaren opted to intervene to restore the original order, despite Piastri suggesting that it had previously been agreed that slow pitstops would not trigger such a decision.
Wolff, who managed an acrimonious team-mate title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2016, said: "I'm curious to see how that ends up. You set a precedent that is very difficult to undo.
"What if the team does another mistake and it's not a pitstop, do you switch them around?
"But then equally, because of a team mistake, making a driver that is trying to catch up lose the points is not fair either.
"I think we are going to get our response of whether that was right today towards the end of the season when it heats up."
The intervention came a week after McLaren inadvertently influenced its drivers' championship battle in a bigger way as Norris retired from the Dutch Grand Prix with a mechanical problem that it accepted the blame for.
This lost him 18 points, a much bigger swing than the six-point one that occurred at Monza - which let Norris trim Piastri's margin from 34 to 31 points instead of seeing it rise to 37.
One sentiment that has arisen repeatedly during the McLaren fight is whether the team is trying too hard to apply specific principles and is over-engineering its handling of this battle.
In 2016, by comparison, Mercedes' trigger to intervene was only when the drivers collided and related specifically to 'rules of engagement' between them - although Wolff said his drivers were "two different animals in the car" who "took no prisoners racing against each other", whereas McLaren's duo is fighting in a different way.
There is not the same personal rivalry and animosity as underpinned the Hamilton-Rosberg rivalry, and the tension is primarily arising around how much McLaren is willing to let the drivers prioritise their own interests over the team's principles.
For instance, while Piastri subsequently described the request from McLaren as fair, he hardly seemed convinced it was necessary or the right thing to do - but as he opted to forfeit the points and abide by the instruction, there will be pressure on McLaren to determine what kind of team mistake must be corrected in the future too.
Wolff said: "If the team made a mistake, the team inverted the positions, [seems an] absolutely fair decision.
"On the other side, what is a team mistake? What if next time around the car doesn't start up and you lose a position or whatever - or the suspension breaks. What do you do then in the next one?
"So you could have a cascade of events, or precedents, that can be very difficult to manage.
"Most important is to have a clear strategy. You either go like this or you go the other way around. Either try to race or try to balance it in the most possible fair way, bearing in mind that he'll be back there at the end.
"You have to define whatever path you choose - and it's a luxury problem. They can't lose those championships anymore."
