HOCKENHEIM, Germany -- Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is confident his drivers will not collide at the team's home grand prix on Sunday, despite starting side by side on the front row of the grid.
Nico Rosberg will line up ahead of Lewis Hamilton for the short run down to Turn 1, with the winner of the race set to carry the championship lead into the summer break. Hockenheim is Mercedes' home circuit, but while Wolff does not expect his drivers to back down or drive any differently in Germany, he believes enough of a deterrent was put in place following their last collision to stop them hitting each other again.
"I'm very confident because we have talked about it a lot and what the consequence would be," Wolff said. "As a driver, it's clear that they wouldn't want to make a statement before the race that they wouldn't want to be crashing -- that would be giving too much away [to the other driver]. But they are aware [of the consequences]."
Wolff said the conduct of his drivers at the two races since the collision in Austria is proof that they have understood his warning.
"Those rules or guidelines are designed to prevent incidents that cost us points and we haven't had any incidents since then. So whatever the behaviour is or the pattern is during the weeks in the build up to the race weekend, it doesn't really matter.
"It's important that on a Sunday those rules are being followed and Silverstone and Hungary were pretty straight forward. So I have positive indications that the message has arrived."
Hamilton said racing at Mercedes' home grand prix would not impact on his approach to Sunday's race.
"Not really I mean we're paid to do a job and every weekend is exactly the same, whether or not the bosses or there or not. There's been races where the bosses have been there and they've walked away super unhappy and there's been times, hopefully more often than not, where they've arrived and we've done the job well and they've been happy.
"I'm going to drive as I always have in my life. Me and Nico and the team, we've obviously discussed and learnt from things in the past so I don't see tomorrow being an issue for either of us."