Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has admitted the team might need to unleash its drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, for the good of the sport.
The Austrian has warned the pair that should their rivalry spill over, they could face the chop, but admitted it could be the answer to injecting some excitement back into the sport, after conceeding that Mercedes’ dominance had made things predictable in 2015.
“Our dominance is bad for Formula 1,” he told the Daily Mail. “It makes the racing boring. It becomes predictable. The sport needs multiple winners. It needs the odd freak result. It needs the underdog to win.
“The moment you become a dominant force, you suffer and your brand suffers. You become the dark side of the force.
“It happened to Red Bull,” he added. “They were the Jedis. They were controversial. They had a superb brand.
“But after winning the world title four times in a row, they developed into an unsympathetic brand. Nobody wants the establishment.
“If you start to behave like the establishment, you are finished and people will have animosity against you. So our dominance is bad for F1 and it’s bad for us, but what can I do?”
One idea Wolff proposed involves going against Mercedes’ usual message of equality, by allowing its drivers to run differing strategies decided by separate strategists, whilst allowing the drivers to change strategy if they feel the need.
However he warned that such a decision cannot lead to infighting within the team.
“Maybe it’s about unleashing the two of them [Hamilton and Rosberg] completely. Make them have their own strategy. That would be a solution.
“We had a more relaxed approach this year, letting them fight it out on the track and it might have a new dimension next year. I want to contain it. I don’t want fighting in the team. I’d like the boxers to fight but not the trainers and the physios and everybody around the ring.”
