Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has said the team is prepared to accept losing this year's championship by maintaining the values they have held over the past few years.

The Austrian's claim comes after Lewis Hamilton handed back third place to teammate Valtteri Bottas at the final corner of Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix as part of an agreement that saw the Finn let the three-time champion by in their effort to catch the Ferraris with 20 laps to go.

The consequence of the call is Hamilton, who most accept is in a straight fight with Sebastian Vettel for this year's world championship while Bottas hangs on, handing three points away to the German in their battle as his lead in the standings increased to 14 points rather than the 11 it would have been if he had stayed in third.

“These values made us win six championships and is going to make us win more championships in the years to come,” Wolff claimed as he explained the decision.

“It cost us three points and it can potentially cost us the championship. We are perfectly conscious of all of that but this is how the drivers and the team operates.

“We stick to what we say, and if the consequences are as much as losing the championship, we take it. But long term, we will be winning much more races and much more championships with that approach than doing it the other way around.”

Should it prove decisive, however, with the gap so far this year between Vettel and Hamilton having yet to stretch beyond the 25-point mark, Wolff admits it will be an incredibly tough pill to swallow.

“Well saying I wouldn’t regret the decision would be very naive," he claimed. “The truth is if you miss out on the championship by two or three points people would say it’s because of Budapest and I would be the first one to shoot myself in the knee and all of us.

“Nevertheless, I think long-term standing by what you say and standing by your values is going to make us win more championships - it was a tough call to make and a very difficult one, believe me.

“It was probably the most difficult call we had to make in the last five years because we were not sure how close Max would come at the end. I am not in a happy place at the moment. If we are not fast enough at least we are sportsmanlike.”

Hamilton too revealed it was a "heart over head" decision to abide by the agreement but points to it as an example of doing things "the right way".

"I don’t know whether that will come back to bite me in the backside or not but I said at the beginning of the year I want to win it the right way,” he said.

“I think today really shows, hopefully, that I’m a man of my word and also that I am a team player. I am just as much a part of the team as anyone else and I think we are working better together than we ever have.

“Today shows unity. I think in life if you do good things, good things do come around back to you. Hopefully, in the future, it will pay dividends.”