Race and classic pictures

Just one big happy family at Mercedes!

© Twitter.com / @MercedesAMGF1

It's going to be a week of celebrations at Brackley and Brixworth after Mercedes managed to claim their fifth consecutive world championship on Sunday.

Here's team principal Toto Wolff beaming like a proud parent at the school sports day as his drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas display the trophies won by the team this weekend.

Wolff revealed that he had been called by the FIA President Jean Todt (below with Wolff) just moments after the end of the race to congratulate him and the team on their achievement.

© Twitter.com / @MercedesAMGF1

Sadly missing from the team celebrations in last weekend was Mercedes non-executive chairman and three-time world champion Niki Lauda, who continues to recover back home in Austria from a lung transplant operation over the summer.

Wolff said he expected the 69-year-old to be back in the paddock with the team next season, if not even earlier.

"It's all Niki and the doctors' decision," he told Osterreich newspaper on Sunday. "But if it's not Abu Dhabi, then he will be with us in Australia in March.

"He torments the therapists to the maximum. I'm sure they wish he was back with us already," he added.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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