Daimler chairman and head of Mercedes Dieter Zetsche says Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are "the perfect couple".
Hamilton and Rosberg have had an increasingly strained relationship as team-mates since Mercedes started dominating F1 at the start of the 2014 season, with team boss Toto Wolff going as far as to warn the drivers he would change the line-up if their rivalry started to have a negative impact. Zetsche, however, believes the different lifestyles enjoyed by the two drivers results in the ideal partnership, with Hamilton having won the last two drivers' championships.
“As long as Lewis wins races he can organise the rest of his life, as long as it is within the scope of our brand values, as he wants to," Zetsche told Auto Express. "And when you look at the relevance of his personality and the social networks with 12 million followers and so on, what can we wish for more than a rock star? He’s the fastest on the track and that’s perfect.
“At the same time we have the other guy who’s as fast and has a very different lifestyle with a family and a kid. These are the two bookends and I think we are really very lucky to have them, they are the perfect couple, absolutely.”
And Zetsche admits he would like Mercedes to be pushed harder by its rivals in 2016 having won both championships with three races to spare last year.
“We want to win. Preferably in the last race by two points. But this is not our task to reduce the gap, but the task of our competitors.”
Feature: What happens on any given F1 Saturday?
F1i classic: Jim Clark's last wins
Technical preview: What changes in 2016?
Use the red tabs on either side of the screen to scroll through more Formula One news and features
