Gerhard Berger, who is famously close to Red Bull’s inner circle, has admitted Mercedes is heading into the 2014 season as the favourite.<\/p>\n
World champions Red Bull, powered by Renault, are in the midst of a technical crisis with the new RB10 car, while Mercedes has got off to a flying start in the revolutionary new V6 era.<\/p>\n
“I am not surprised that Mercedes has built the best engine,” former F1 driver and Austrian Berger, who last decade co-owned the Toro Rosso team with Red Bull, told Germany’s Sport Bild.<\/p>\n
He predicted 2014 would ultimately be a “struggle between the genius of Adrian Newey and Sebastian Vettel against Mercedes technology”.<\/p>\n
However, Berger sees a glimmer of hope for Red Bull.<\/p>\n
“In 1989 at Ferrari we managed three laps in the pre-season but my teammate Nigel Mansell won the first race,” he said.<\/p>\n
But as far as Lewis Hamilton is concerned, Mercedes’ pre-season is going smoothly.<\/p>\n
“It’s very difficult to know where we are in terms of performance,” the Briton said in Bahrain on Wednesday, “but in terms of reliability we are in front.”<\/p>\n
When asked about Mercedes’ apparent dominance in 2014 so far, however, Renault Sport’s engineering chief Remi Taffin did not want to comment.<\/p>\n
“It would be a waste of time to be looking at what they’re doing (now),” he is quoted by Italiaracing.<\/p>\n
“If we are in a position to beat them, then we will look at them,” he added.<\/p>\n
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