FORMULA 1: Mercedes Suffers Transparency

Mercedes  Chief Toto Wolff says the level of transparency between Formula 1 team-mates in person of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton and 2014 title rivals 'suffered' during the Austrian Grand Prix Weekend. Am sure you all must have been surprised to see the team 'Mercedes' failing to qualify in the front row for the first time this season at the Red Bull Ring, as the williams duo drivers Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas came to the fore. Wolff suggested the fact Williams was able to out-qualify Mercedes with a slower car showed the intense battle between Rosberg and Hamilton could leave the door open for rivals. "After FP3, we weren't in good shape, and the atmosphere wasn't like in the races before: we see it's getting very competitive, transparency is suffering a little bit, and we need to make sure this is not detrimental to the team although our first priority must to let the two [drivers] compete each other - we don't want to interfere from the outside and manipulate  it in one or the other direction," said Wolff, whose drivers recovered to finish one-two in the race.

"We need the whole group working together - the drivers and engineers from both sides of the garage - this is the spirit we must maintain because it's not about winning the next couple o races, but hopefully staying competitive for the next couple of years. "Therefore, every race we need to learn, and we can only learn if we have an open and transparent way of working with each other."

MANAGING DRIVERS IS KEY TO WINNING THE CHAMPIONSHIPS [DRIVERS AND CONSTRUCTORS]

Wolff said it would crucial for Mercedes to manage Rosberg and Hamliton "in the right way", to ensure they do not hold things back from the teams in order to try to beat one another, amid suggestions that the duo have been aborting practice laps to avoid revealing their true performance level before Q3. "It's clearly competitive, and the longer we go into the season the more competitive it will get so we just need to keep the transparency level where it is and not become in-transparent," Wolff added. "We have to look very carefully at it. We don't want to keep the lap that shows how capable the car is until the final qualifying, because we need to understand where we can improve the car and transparency is all about exchanging views and learning from each other." "I'm not saying this has happened, we just don't want to see any sandbagging and aborted laps when we need to learn about the car." "The main agenda is for us to win the constructor's championship and making sure one of the driver's wins the driver's championship, so maybe first we need to win the constructor's championship and then we can unleash them."