'It got too extreme' - Rosberg admits his fued with former Merc teammate Hamilton got out of hand

In a frank admission, Nico Rosberg has admitted that his feud with Lewis Hamilton during their time together at Mercedes became "too extreme".

Rosberg and Hamilton became fierce rivals during the years of Mercedes' dominance, with the team eventually needing to put rules and sanctions in place to try and manage their abusive relationship.

The partnership finally ended after Rosberg beat Hamilton to the 2016 Drivers' title in dramatic fashion, with the German announcing his retirement from the sport immediately after.

Looking back, Rosberg concedes the situation between the two got out of hand, although he noted that Mercedes appears to have learned their lessons from that time.

"We made it extremely difficult," he told Sky F1.

"It went to the point that we had a code of conduct, a paper, what we were allowed to do in a wheel-to-wheel battle, even penalties with many zeros on them attached to that because there was no other way. It just got too heated and too extreme.

"I think Toto has learned so much from the fight Lewis and I had and managing us," Rosberg added.

"That's helping him a lot now in managing George [Russell] coming into the team because it's challenging – you don't want to cut his wings completely, but you want to tell him 'don't crash into Lewis', so it's a very fine line. But I think Toto is getting that right brilliantly at the moment.

"Obviously, there's less heat when you are racing for 11th and 13th places rather than first and second all the time, and you're fighting for a championship.

"So that will definitely make the team situation internally, in terms of the battle between the drivers, easier at the moment to manage."