Brawn says he won't interfere in on-track rivarly between Schumacher and Rosberg

Schumacher issued a very robust defence of his position against Rosberg on the approach to Turn 8 on the opening lap at the Yas Marina circuit - in a move that could have resulted in the pair colliding.

But despite the fact that Schumacher and Rosberg are getting involved in regular on-track battles for position, Brawn insists that he is happy with the way the two men are handling things.

When asked by AUTOSPORT about if he feared competitive tensions emerging between his two drivers, Brawn said: "I don't think it is emerging, I think it has always been there.

"You say to the guys: we will all work together in this as a team, and you have to find the right balance.

"If I ever felt one driver was being outrageous against the other then we would talk about it, for sure, but nothing was said after Abu Dhabi because neither driver was upset about what the other one had done. It was pretty aggressive but they are free to race and I hope it can continue that way."

Brawn believes that Schumacher's focus at the moment is not actually on his race performance, but in improving his qualifying form against Rosberg.

"At the moment our drivers are fairly evenly matched in races, but Nico is better in qualifying so I think that is the area that Michael is working on trying to improve.

"It took a little while for him to settle down and perhaps we expected, unreasonably, for him to walk in and pick it up where he finished. But particularly his race performances this year have been encouraging and I constantly say, if we give them a car they can both win races.