Toto Wolff has admitted the end of Mercedes’ utter dominance is good for the sport.
Throughout the ’power unit’ era to date, Mercedes won every title on offer and almost completely monopolised the top step of the podium.
But in 2017 so far, Mercedes has been defeated two out of three times by Ferrari.
"Yes, our three-year dominance is over," team boss Wolff told the Swiss newspaper Blick.
"It was not always good for formula one. That’s why many fans are now looking forward to a great world championship."
On the other hand, Wolff says Mercedes is enjoying the new, calmer relationship between its drivers.
"Before, for three years we had to consider how to manage Rosberg and Hamilton, but that problem is now gone," said the Austrian.
But Wolff did have to upset Nico Rosberg’s successor Valtteri Bottas in Bahrain by ordering him aside for the faster Lewis Hamilton.
"That never feels good. But the question we had to ask was ’Do we want to lose the race?’
"Valtteri simply didn’t have the tyres under control, so we had to put Lewis ahead," he said.