Lauda: Brawn wrong to tell Rosberg not to pass Hamilton

Mercedes shareholder and non-executive chairman Niki Lauda has said he will need to 'talk' to team principal, Ross Brawn, following the Briton's decision to instruct Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to hold station near the end of last weekend's 2013 F1 Malaysian Grand Prix.

Hamilton and Rosberg eventually finished 3-4 at the Sepang International Circuit for the Brackley-based outfit, but the latter appeared much stronger in the final stint.

Indeed on the podium Hamilton conceded that rightly they would have finished the other way around [see separate story] and Lauda believes it was wrong to stop the two from fighting it out on the track.

"From a sporting perspective, that was wrong," the three-time F1 world champion told The Times. "They should have let [Rosberg] go. We need to talk to Ross, if this is the strategy to be used from now on."

Mercedes executive director, Toto Wolff on contrast, however, felt Brawn had made the right decision.

"There was no controversy. Both of our drivers had a bit of fuel issue and we were not sure if we could run them until the end and both of them were advised they had the issue. Nico showed that he is a fantastic team player and he held onto the position. We would have done it in the opposite way as well," Wolff added.

"It's not perfect from the sporting point of view - and it is obviously not what the people want to see and not what I want to see, but sometimes you have to take a call and you have to make a decision and Ross did that.

"It's for the team bringing home third and fourth, but from a sporting point of view for sure it's not fantastic," Wolff concluded.