Should Mercedes buy Otro Capital's 24% stake in the Alpine team, it would be a blow for the sporting integrity of Formula 1 at a time when action should be taken to make such a deal impossible. 

Common ownership - one entity's ownership having a stake in another - is problematic in any sporting competition. It doesn't matter how large or small that stake is, or whether it's a controlling or minority one; it's the potential for wrongdoing and the perception, therefore, that undermines the integrity of the sport. 

This isn't about whether Mercedes would do anything untoward, because that's not the point. Just as with my longstanding objection to Red Bull owning two teams, it's about what should be a fundamental tenet of any major sporting competition. There are only 11 teams in F1, so there's no need for such situations to arise and many reasons to prevent them.

The burgeoning health of F1 today means there is no justification to allow the possibility of a lesser team existing as a vassal state of another.

The intentions of Mercedes are unclear, but suppose it decides that as part of the deal, it can make Alpine dependent on it not only for power unit and gearbox supply, but for every possible transferable component; this would follow the Haas-Ferrari model, only that relationship purely exists as a transactional one with no ownership involved. This would make Alpine, by definition, less than the majority of other teams at a time when F1 is making long-term progress towards having more teams capable of battling at the front.

Yes, Red Bull owns two teams and that's been the case for two decades. That arose out of necessity at a very different time for F1, and even if that arrangement were to be 'grandfathered' in by the rule and governance changes that should be made, it's an option that should be closed to other entities. Ideally, that should be accompanied by gentle behind-the-scenes persuasion for Red Bull to divest itself of the second team, provided it is realistic for it to do so at a fair price.

There are, of course, ways for teams to collude outside of shared ownership should they so desire, and there are other spheres of influence, such as power unit supply deals and business connections tangential to F1. Those will always exist, but are no excuse to allow something as overtly problematic as common ownership to happen in F1.

If Mercedes only has an interest for financial reasons, to profit off its stake, you might argue, what's the difference between it doing that and some outside entity doing so? But regardless of the intentions of Mercedes, it's about what it says about F1 as a whole, the confidence it does, or doesn't, inspire from the outside world and the risk that such common ownership could be abused to the detriment of the sport. 

Such concerns might seem overblown, but it's by foreseeing these problems and slamming the door to the circumstances that can create them that prevents genuine controversy down the line. F1 should have already closed off this avenue.

A deal like this is bad for F1 and should be prevented. The trouble is, given the lack of a mechanism to prevent this in its governance, the metaphorical horse may already have bolted on this.