Shanghai - Mercedes held emergency talks with their bickering drivers after Nico Rosberg furiously criticised Lewis Hamilton's tactics after the Chinese Grand Prix.
With relations on a knife-edge before this weekend's Bahrain race, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has moved swiftly to prevent things spiralling out of control -- as they did last year when Rosberg drove into Hamilton in Belgium.
World champion Hamilton powered to his second win in three races this season, but Rosberg's outburst shattered the fragile truce which existed between the rivals following their long-simmering feud.
Wolff took a dim view of the German's accusation that Hamilton had intentionally held him up with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in hot pursuit.
"It needs to be contained without any escalation," he said, flatly denying Hamilton had tried to wreck Rosberg's chances. "Lewis didn't do it on purpose. We have cleared that now -- there wasn't any animosity."
Hamilton's victory was an eighth in 10 races dating back to last season for the Briton, who dominated all weekend before winning for a record fourth time in Shanghai.
Once again he simply had too much pace for Rosberg, who appears to be unravelling under the pressure, berating mechanics after missing out on pole position and demanding that Hamilton speed up during Sunday's race.
"It's not my job to look after Nico's race," Hamilton shrugged. "I just focused on myself."
That prompted Rosberg to snipe: "It's now interesting to hear from you, Lewis, that you were just thinking about yourself."
AFP
