<p>Lewis Hamilton's rivalry with team-mate Nico Rosberg is very different to Formula One’s famous 1980s feud between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said on Thursday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>“It's an intense relationship but this intensity is normal,” the Austrian said on the team website after a weekend of firefighting in Monaco.<br /><br />Rosberg won Sunday's race to end Hamilton's run of four wins in a row and seize the overall championship lead back from the Briton. <br /><br />However the cracks in the relationship were more evident than ever, with Hamilton suggesting the German had deliberately denied him a chance to take pole by running off track in the final seconds of qualifying.<br /><br />Mercedes have started the season in dominant fashion, winning all the races with five successive one-two finishes from six starts, all from pole.<br /><br />“We have seen a lot of talk about their relationship but that's not the key thing for a successful campaign,” said Wolff. “It's a job, not a holiday, and the drivers need to work with and for the team first of all.<br /><br />“There have been a lot of comparisons to the Senna/Prost scenario, which is a kind of compliment to both Lewis and Nico. But the situation here is very different,” he added.<br /><br />“The racing philosophy of Mercedes-Benz is to allow our drivers to compete. We let the boys play with their toys, unless they break them.”<br /><br />Wolff said both knew the team would not tolerate any incident between them and reminded them they were representing nearly 300,000 Mercedes employees around the world.<br /><br />Hamilton played up to the Senna references at the weekend when he threatened after qualifying to take a leaf out of the late Brazilian's book.<br /><br />The remark was interpreted as referring to Senna's title-deciding collisions with McLaren team-mate Prost but Sunday's race passed without incident and Hamilton later told reporters he was joking.</p>
<p>Lewis Hamilton's rivalry with team-mate Nico Rosberg is very different to Formula One’s famous 1980s feud between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, Mercedes motorsport head Toto Wolff said on Thursday.<br /><br /></p>.<p>“It's an intense relationship but this intensity is normal,” the Austrian said on the team website after a weekend of firefighting in Monaco.<br /><br />Rosberg won Sunday's race to end Hamilton's run of four wins in a row and seize the overall championship lead back from the Briton. <br /><br />However the cracks in the relationship were more evident than ever, with Hamilton suggesting the German had deliberately denied him a chance to take pole by running off track in the final seconds of qualifying.<br /><br />Mercedes have started the season in dominant fashion, winning all the races with five successive one-two finishes from six starts, all from pole.<br /><br />“We have seen a lot of talk about their relationship but that's not the key thing for a successful campaign,” said Wolff. “It's a job, not a holiday, and the drivers need to work with and for the team first of all.<br /><br />“There have been a lot of comparisons to the Senna/Prost scenario, which is a kind of compliment to both Lewis and Nico. But the situation here is very different,” he added.<br /><br />“The racing philosophy of Mercedes-Benz is to allow our drivers to compete. We let the boys play with their toys, unless they break them.”<br /><br />Wolff said both knew the team would not tolerate any incident between them and reminded them they were representing nearly 300,000 Mercedes employees around the world.<br /><br />Hamilton played up to the Senna references at the weekend when he threatened after qualifying to take a leaf out of the late Brazilian's book.<br /><br />The remark was interpreted as referring to Senna's title-deciding collisions with McLaren team-mate Prost but Sunday's race passed without incident and Hamilton later told reporters he was joking.</p>