In a rather odd admission, Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda says the Anglo-German outfit doesn’t want to win all 19 races this season.
The outfit has so far won four from four in dominant fashion, with the only challenge coming from an intra-team battle between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
But Lauda says it would be bad for F1 and it would see the sport in new ground, though both Ferrari and McLaren have come close. In 2004 Ferrari took 15 of the 18 wins on offer, whilst McLaren dominated the 1988 season to win all but one.
It’s not something the Austrian would like to see happen.
“We do not want to win all the races,” he told Blick. “It definitely wouldn’t be good for Formula 1.”
However Lauda fully expects Mercedes’ rivals to catch-up and apply some pressure later in the season, once the engine advantage has faded.
“What we are going through now is the harvest of many months of work, particularly in the area of the turbo engine,” he added.
“But we do not think the current situation is normal. Our opponents will certainly be getting stronger.”
