Conspiracy theory time.
Mercedes is still the fastest, by a lot, and have/had the pace to win every race.
They started making stupid strategy calls, just don't have pace and then there are moments when the cars are all of a sudden brutally fast, then they back off. Albon even mentioned that Bottas was just toying with him, on the last lap he took off and the Redbull had nothing for him.
If Mercedes continues to dominate like they did in the first half of the year, they will be slapped with some regulation from the FIA like Ferrari was during the Michael years. They know all Lewis needs is a 5th place or better for every race from now on to win, even in LeClerc won every single race from here on out. This is basically to guarantee their championship for next year as well.
If they have 2 races with Mechanical issues that knocks Lewis into a dangerous territory, we will see just how fast the silver cars will go (it's still much faster than any other car).
I could believe that, sandbag and just do enough to keep Lewis comfortably in the lead and still mop up constructors etc...