Mercedes confident there will be no driver fall-out in 2017

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Mercedes chiefs Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda are confident there will be no damaging fall-out between their drivers this year.

Previous seasons had become dominated by an increasingly fractious relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. With Rosberg now retired, the team doesn't believe there will be a repeat clash between Hamilton and new team mate Valtteri Bottas.

"They get on well," Lauda told France's L'Equipe this week. He added that he didn't expect that to change following Bottas' maiden Grand Prix win in Sochi.

"I don't see any problem with Bottas winning the race," the Mercedes team chairman insisted. "They respect each other, which is the most important.

"Valtteri is discrete, he doesn't talk too much, they're both professional."

Wolff: Too early to discuss Bottas' future at Mercedes

Lauda's confidence was echoed by team principal Toto Wolff.

"The relationship between the two of them is very much intact," Wolff said.

"Lewis was one of the first to congratulate Valtteri on his first race victory. That shows the respect they have towards each other.

"Nevertheless both are fierce competitors and want to win races and fight for the championship," Wolff admitted.

"But I don't think it will affect the team dynamic like it did with Nico," he concluded. "That was a completely different relationship."

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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.