Hamilton and Rosberg 'the perfect couple' - Zetsche

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.”

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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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