Marko Hanželic
After taken away testing in Barcelona it is quite clear that none of the teams have yet thrown all the cards and aces up their sleeves. Who is ahead and who has the most power will only be revealed first race in Bahrain. In 2014, just at the beginning of the hybrid powertrain era, it was completely different.
That's when Mercedes was from the very beginning completely dominant, especially in the field of drive units. Paddy lowe, the former first man of technology at Mercedes remembers: "Even after the first and then the second tests, it was clear that we are far ahead. We used the first updates in Bahrain and then we knew that we were really in our own league. "
Lowe explains that it was exciting to be by far the best, but at the same time they started in the team appear first worries: “Toto Wolff and the management of the Daimler Group feared that Mercedes would look too dominant. We were afraid of the reaction of Bernie Eccleston, who was annoyed by the new powertrains, and we were afraid that he would demand that we be slowed down. "
»So we were dealing with worries we hadn’t known before. We didn't overdo the engine for the Q1 and Q2, but in Q3 there was always the dilemma of how high to go so that the difference wouldn't be too big, and at the same time we wouldn't end up fooling around without a pole position. " he remembers Lowe.
Interestingly, yes Toto wolff declined to confirm Lowe's story: “I think Paddy and I have completely different memories of that season. We never consciously drove at low power, but I agree that we were extremely competitive at the time. "
