As the sand settled on the greatest Formula One race for years, Lewis Hamilton thanked his Mercedes bosses for allowing him and his team-mate Nico Rosberg to battle it out until the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.

It was Hamilton who won the absorbing race after Mercedes simply demanded that the drivers did not crash. “It was great they allowed us to fight and didn’t get in the way of us,” he said. “We are working hard, and being respectful of each other, and that’s what got us through and I hope that will continue.

“He [Rosberg] was fair and I like to think I was. It was close, but I like to think we didn’t damage each other’s races. The team put that trust in us, which is great.”

Hamilton has now won back to back races after Rosberg won the opener in Melbourne last month. “I’m 11 points behind after two awesome races and I’ve got to stick at it because he’s had a win and two seconds,” said the 29-year-old. “His track record so far is better than mine, even if it’s through no fault of mine [Hamilton was forced to retire his car in Australia].”

Mercedes’ executive director, Toto Wolff, was equally thrilled by the gripping nature of the race and believes it showed why team orders are bad for the sport. He said: “It doesn’t get any better advertising for F1 at a moment when lots of people were talking F1 down.

“You need the drivers to know that it is important not to risk the image of such a brand. We are representing a big brand and they need to know what to do, and they did it in a fantastic and spectacular way. Imagine if we’d imposed team orders from lap two or something. What a terrible thing that would be for F1 and the Mercedes philosophy in motorsport.”

The executive director, Paddy Lowe, who runs the team in partnership with Wolff, said: “It is a great result for Mercedes and the team. But more than that, it is a great result for Formula One because there has been so much negative stuff around – I have to say not generated by us, but generated by some of our competitors, putting in doubt the nature of this new formula.

“What was shown here was the perfect outcome. We have shown that we can bring all this new technology but at the same time the spirit of racing is still there. I cannot remember a more exciting in the last decade, in terms of wheel-to-wheel racing.”

Asked about his display of defensive skills, Hamilton added: “It’s not so often you have opportunities like that where you can really show it. In karting you show it every weekend, in F1 once in a blue moon. I was able to show I still have it. I’m trying to be the strongest I’ve been in my life.”