There is an old saying among lawyers — the greater the truth, the greater the denial. And the cynic in me is stirred to believe the adage has some foundation in the aftermath of the result-changing diversion off-track by Nico Rosberg in last Sunday’s highly controversial Italian Grand Prix.

He lost enough time and circuit-advantage to allow nearest title rival and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to scorch clear for a win that had looked extremely unlikely.

Hamilton’s lamentable start, triggered by a launch control hiccup, dropped him from pole sitter to struggler in fourth place with Rosberg a runaway leader.

And here my sceptical outlook surveys an upcoming scene that could well, though I don’t know for sure and have no evidence, have been fashioned at a top-secret meeting in the UK of Mercedes to punish Rosberg for his crash into Hamilton at the previous race in Belgium.

The multimillionaire German driver’s six-figure fine by the team will have been deemed insufficient by a bitter Hamilton, who lost crucial ground in his game of title catch-up.

Hence, I suspect, payback time to his way of thinking would be the surrender, willingly or not, of precious points by the guilty party, his Mercedes cohort.

Rosberg’s critical off-track excursion on lap 29, when Hamilton had made up places to second spot but still looked unlikely to overtake for the lead, was an action replay of what looked like a rehearsal on the same corner 20 laps earlier.

I find it hard to believe that a driver of his cool skill could twice blunder, the second time so disastrously, into a corner that had been hardly any trouble, even to lesser adept drivers.

The upshot was a switch around of the front runners with, ironically, Rosberg looking less like a challenger and champion-elect every succeeding lap, with pit-lane orders to preserve his tyres for a late comeback.

I was not alone in my reflex reaction that an instruction from the team’s hierarchy had privileged Hamilton with a golden opportunity for victory.

The esteemed, cool-headed likes of three-times world champion Sir Jackie Stewart and former team owner Eddie Jordan, now a BBC TV pundit, and very many others, shared my suspicions on cooler reflection.

The denials (look back at what I wrote at the top of my column) came thick and fast, with the Mercdes authorities scoffing at the accusations that have since reached universal proportions.

“The accusers are paranoid,” laughed Mercedes’ motorsport chief Toto Wolff. That’s me certified then — but I’m not alone.

— The writer is a motorsport journalist based in the UK