By Mark Fogarty
Outspoken legend Niki Lauda makes no apologies for Mercedes-Benz's continued Formula One domination, which has been blamed for declining worldwide interest.
Lauda is non-executive chairman of the Mercedes F1 team, which swept last year's world championship and is on course for a repeat title double.
Daniel Ricciardo has been critical of the 2015 car.Credit: Getty Images
Despite his senior management role, the 68-year-old Austrian icon is not restrained from speaking his mind and often adopts a devil's advocate stance within the team.
But while Lauda acknowledged that F1 needs to restore its spectacle and excitement, he maintained that it was up to rival teams to match Mercedes rather than gain concessions to improve the competition.
"I'm not in charge of the politics," he said. "My job here is to ensure, with [team co-chiefs] Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe, that we win and you can't make any compromises there. If one team shows what can be done, it's much easier for the others to catch up."
Critics would suggest matching Mercedes is easier said than done, with the team winning 16 of 19 races last year as Lewis Hamilton claimed the world title from teammate Nico Rosberg in a private battle that has resumed this season.
They have won eight of the 10 races so far, with Hamilton leading Rosberg in the standings 202-181 as F1 prepares to return from its northern summer break in next Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix at the famed Spa-Francorchamps track.
The other two victories went to Sebastian Vettel, whose move from Red Bull Racing to Ferrari coincided with a big improvement by the Italian team.
Vettel is third in the standings, 21 points behind Rosberg and still in title contention.
Mercedes is heading for another teams' world title, leading Ferrari by 147 points.
Vettel's successes in the Malaysian GP and late last month in the Hungarian GP were more about capitalising on lapses by Mercedes than Ferrari being a genuine race-by-race threat.
Ferrari has closed the gap to Mercedes, which retains a big performance advantage, while Red Bull's hybrid power unit supplier Renault has made no progress.
Renault has handicapped Daniel Ricciardo, who won three races last year but only scored his first podium this season with a fighting third at the Hungaroring.
That performance, highlighted by Ricciardo's take-no-prisoners late-race despatches of Hamilton and Rosberg, confirmed Lauda's opinion that the Australian is a star without a competitive car.
"He's very good, there's no question," he said. "For me, Ricciardo is one of the top guys in the field. I like him, I like his attitude.
"What he did last year to Vettel [overshadowing the four-time world champion in his first season at Red Bull Racing] was outstanding. There you could see where he really is. He has all the credentials to get there if he is in the right car at the right time."
According to Lauda, who won two of his three F1 world titles after barely surviving a fiery crash at the treacherous Nurburgring in the 1976 German GP, Mercedes will keep pushing to retain its edge in the last nine races.
"We can never sit back and say 'We're good'," he said. "That's when you stop going forward. I would say that after the [northern] summer break, Ferrari will come up with another engine and car upgrade. There's no question they will come [closer]."