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MONTE CARLO, Monaco - Daimler's chief executive Dieter Zetsche gave his full backing to Formula 1's 2014 fuel-saving technical revolution as he announced a multi-year extension of sponsorship by Malaysian oil giant Petonas.
He told reporters ahead of Sunday's (May 25) 2014 Monaco F1 GP: "It's even better that the technological challenge is identical to the challenge on the business side - the objective is to save fuel... to be efficient, very high-performance.
"That's exactly what we have to do with our production cars and we use exactly the same technical components... it's making even more sense with the new regulations than it did in the past."
FOUR IN A ROW
Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg enjoying a clear performance advantage with the new V6 turbo-hybrid 'power unit', has won every race so far in 2014 - each one from pole.
Hamilton has won four in a row with Rosberg second and the two are so dominant that the title battle between the team mates is the main talking point ahead of the season's glamour race.
Mercedes' motorsport head Toto Wolff said F1 also made sense for Mercedes and Petronas from a rational and financial perspective. "There's so much negative spin, most recently about the economic state of F1 and whether it makes sense to sponsor it
"If you look at the average media value we have generated this season for Petronas and Mercedes it makes sense to invest in F1."
RIVALS? GET COMPETITIVE!
Zetsche brushed aside a suggestion that Mercedes's success, after a difficult first three years for the works team after the purchase of Brawn GP at the end of 2009, had made the racing less exciting.
He said it was up to rivals to be more competitive - but Mercedes would not make it easy for them.
"We've seen four years in a row with one team winning the championship, now we are talking about five races where one team has won," he said. "My feeling is that many have expected Mercedes to succeed in this competition. Some were even surprised that it took us so long to become even more competitive.
"We are where people expected us before."
Stay with Wheels24 for the 2014 Monaco F1 GP weekend.
He told reporters ahead of Sunday's (May 25) 2014 Monaco F1 GP: "It's even better that the technological challenge is identical to the challenge on the business side - the objective is to save fuel... to be efficient, very high-performance.
"That's exactly what we have to do with our production cars and we use exactly the same technical components... it's making even more sense with the new regulations than it did in the past."
FOUR IN A ROW
Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg enjoying a clear performance advantage with the new V6 turbo-hybrid 'power unit', has won every race so far in 2014 - each one from pole.
Hamilton has won four in a row with Rosberg second and the two are so dominant that the title battle between the team mates is the main talking point ahead of the season's glamour race.
Mercedes' motorsport head Toto Wolff said F1 also made sense for Mercedes and Petronas from a rational and financial perspective. "There's so much negative spin, most recently about the economic state of F1 and whether it makes sense to sponsor it
"If you look at the average media value we have generated this season for Petronas and Mercedes it makes sense to invest in F1."
RIVALS? GET COMPETITIVE!
Zetsche brushed aside a suggestion that Mercedes's success, after a difficult first three years for the works team after the purchase of Brawn GP at the end of 2009, had made the racing less exciting.
He said it was up to rivals to be more competitive - but Mercedes would not make it easy for them.
"We've seen four years in a row with one team winning the championship, now we are talking about five races where one team has won," he said. "My feeling is that many have expected Mercedes to succeed in this competition. Some were even surprised that it took us so long to become even more competitive.
"We are where people expected us before."
Stay with Wheels24 for the 2014 Monaco F1 GP weekend.
