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Cape Town - Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has said that a bit of "tension and disruption" between Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas would help the team become more effective.
Lewis Hamilton's relationship with Nico Rosberg became particularly toxic, but Bottas has eradicated that feeling since moving to the team ahead of the 2017 season.
However, Wolff does not want a "family" feel to Mercedes and wants to find a balance where a more competitive environment can be created with both drivers pushing each other to their absolute best.
"I don't think we need to avoid a stressful situation," Wolff told Motorsport.com "We need to acknowledge that, if two teammates can fight for race wins and a championship, that this will be a rivalry.
"And we need to be conscious and acknowledge that that is the case.
"We are not trying to build a new family here, we want to be the most effective racing team, and an effective racing team needs stress, needs tension, needs disruption as much as it needs calmness and a positive attitude and mindset.
"But like everywhere in life you want to have the mix of both, probably the recipe for success."
Wolff did go on to praise Bottas, though, after showing that he is capable of bouncing back from the tough moments he encountered throughout the 2017 season.
He added: "The best ones are the ones that recover from bad moments. And maybe in a few years we will look back and say this was an important moment for his racing.
"The only thing we can do as a racing team is to stay transparent and fair to both of them, support them where we can, but eventually they are alone in the car. And he pulled himself out of it.
"He's a hard Finn. I could never see, visually, that it was impacting him – he said that, but I think with the strength of his character, he crept back.
"And every race, there was better performances, and Brazil the qualifying was good, the race less so, but he knew that, and then he delivered an exceptional weekend here in Abu Dhabi."
