While F1 history is littered with high-profile examples of team-mate fallouts - especially when a World Championship is at stake - the state of the relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has been particularly scrutinsed in recent weeks.
April 2014Hamilton and Rosberg speaking ahead of the Bahrain GP - where they would wage a titantic duel for victory - on whether their relationship would be put to the test by a head-to-head title battle:
Rosberg: "It hasn't changed at all. Yet. Maybe we are not thinking about the World Championship yet, it's still early days. In go-karts we were exactly the same position, although there's a few more people around and a bit more media, and we managed to get through that with respect."
"I'm confident we can handle it again in any circumstance. There will be tough times, inevitably, but I'm confident we can work through it."
Hamilton: "It's very simple. People are constantly talking about us being friends and all that stuff. Nico and I, as with anyone, can count our friends on one hand. Nico does not come into those five friends I have, and I don't come in the five friends he has.
"We're colleagues who have known each other for a long time, longer than any of the other drivers, and we have a great amount of respect for one another. We work in the same team and we have a great working relationship."
May 2014At the Spanish GP, the Mercedes paired are asked whether, with the championship at stake, their relationship will be the same by the end of the season:
Hamilton: "We've been racing together for a long time so I don't see why not."
Rosberg: "Definitely yes, because we've been through this before. It's not a first time and even back then we had discussions, debate but always... life goes on, discuss it and life goes on so that helps, yeah."
Two weeks later, in the same interview ahead of the Monaco GP in which Hamilton suggests he is 'hungrier' than Rosberg, the Briton said of their relationship:
"When you're so competitive it is impossible to be best friends - but then it stays respectful. We will always have the years in karting, that kind of foundation of a long time ago. For example, I have been storing my safe in his house for several months and just took it back now - and that could always also be the other way around."
Then co the events of the Monaco GP weekend. Having appeared far from convinced that Rosberg hadn't deliberately gone the track in qualifying, Hamilton appeared to draw a line in the sand with his comments to Sky F1 after the race:
Lewis Hamilton: "We are not friends, we are colleagues."
Nico Rosberg: "We've always been friends, we always will be friends. But friends is a big word. What exactly is friends? We have a good relationship and work well together."
Five days after the race, however, and Hamilton tweeted:
