Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff has played down the feud between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at the United States Grand Prix by suggesting that matters have been blown out of proportion.

Rosberg was seen throwing a cap at Hamilton after watching his teammate seal his third World Championship title success on Sunday evening.

The German driver also refused to take part in the post-race celebrations, while claiming afterwards that victorious Hamilton had been "too aggressive" when taking the lead in Texas.

However, Wolff has now moved to clear the air in an interview with BBC Sport, saying: "If it were drivers from different teams, it would be seen as completely normal, what we all love to see and like it should be.

"But because it was teammates, and they touched, we are going to discuss it, as we did many things in the past. It is what we want to see and it is what we owe to the fans. It is what racing is about. We don't want to have remote-control puppets who drive around with a metre distance between themselves.

"It is not how these guys are calibrated and it is not what people want to see and we don't want to see it either. But because there is such a huge resource in the team and so many people putting so much effort into delivering such a race car, we don't want any rift to happen between the two sides of the garages."

Rosberg is third in the drivers' rankings, sitting behind Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel with three races remaining.