Mercedes felt obliged to dismiss conspiracy theories, Ferrari were licking wounds and Red Bull apologetic in the wake of a Russian Grand Prix where Nico Rosberg stretched his perfect season record to four wins out of four races.
Rosberg won handily from Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton who recovered from 10th on the grid to second, and Kimi Raikkonen who salvaged at least some Ferrari pride after Sebastian Vettel's race ended in lap one after being hit twice by Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat.
The German Rosberg stretched his championship lead to 43 points with what was his seventh straight win overall.
Hamilton's woes meanwhile continued in Sochi and he is yet to win a race since prematurely clinching the 2015 world title in late October, his 2016 results being 2-3-7-2.
A power unit failure, just as two weeks ago in China, saw him start from 10th on the grid, and when he started closing in on Rosberg he was told by the team to look after his car owing to a water pressure problem.
Unfair, abusive comments
And although Mercedes said afterwards that it was also receiving strange signals from Rosberg's power unit, they found it necessary to counter theories suggesting they were favouring the German this season.
“The last thing we would do is sabotage Lewis Hamilton,” Mercedes motorsport director Toto Wolff insisted.
“Lewis has won two championships with this team. The reason why I am being vocal about it is because those guys are being hit by comments that are unfair and outright abusive without reason.”
Wolff and Hamilton also dismissed that a pre-season swap of mechanics between the two sides of the garage had to do with this.
“The guys on my side of the garage are having a really hard time of it at the moment - but I have every faith and confidence in them,” Hamilton said.
“We've swapped things round in the garage a bit this season but that is absolutely not the reason we've been having issues.”
Rosberg meanwhile was imperious again as he has stayed out of all trouble so far this season, saying “seldom had such an awesome car.”
But he warned that nothing is decided yet as F1 heads to Europe now, starting with the May 15 Spanish GP.
Motivated as ever
“It's four races from 21. Lewis is going to come back of course. He's on it and as motivated as ever,” he said.
In Barcelona Hamilton will try again to get a first season win which could also end the conspiracy theories Britain's Guardian on Monday named “a nonsense barely worth a response.”
But the paper added: “The Briton and the championship badly need a clean, problem-free win to put the focus back on the reality of racing.”
DPA