"If you can win everything and never have a fight, what's the value?"

1996 Formula 1 champion Damon Hill is a proponent of taking on the best drivers in the sport as teammates, as the Brit argues it brings out the best in a driver when you directly compete with the best of the best.

Hill himself had Alain Prost as a teammate at Williams in his first full season in F1, followed by Ayrton Senna in 1994 until the Brazilian tragically passed at Imola. 

The now 59-year-old Hill used his two former teammates, who were fierce rivals in their time at McLaren when they shared the garage, as an example of two stars bringing the best out of each other.

"It's not good to avoid the fight," Hill told Auto Motor und Sport. "If you look at the [Ayrton] Senna-[Alain] Prost era, two of the best guys in the best car, it produced some of the most intense Formula 1 we've ever had.

"I think they both benefitted. It showed the true character of Ayrton - not always a pretty sight - and also put Alain under a huge pressure which I think he coped with incredibly well considering what the stakes were."

Often seen as the most iconic rivalry in F1 history, Senna and Prost produced some spectacular wheel-to-wheel racing in their time at McLaren as they dominated the grid in the late '80s.

Hill compared this to Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, who he thinks have avoided having such a battle within their own team.

"Michael really avoided and maybe Lewis has avoided having a proper head-to-head. Lewis was with Jenson [Button] and [Fernando] Alonso. I think the public like to see [that battle]."

"If you can win everything and never have a fight, what's the value?"