Lauda says Mercedes F1 domination has more merit than Red Bull's

Mercedes has hit the ground running with the new turbo regulations, and that has allowed Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton to win every race in 2014.

Lauda, who is non-executive chairman at Mercedes, thinks that outclassing the opposition with the challenge of all-new rules is significantly harder than what Red Bull did last year when Sebastian Vettel won the final nine races of the campaign.

"This year we have new engines, new gearboxes, new electric brakes, and new cars," said Lauda.

"And the Mercedes cars finished the first four races, which for me is the outstanding result.

"If you have shi*** engines like last year, and nine races in a row like Vettel, to finish all of them, this is easy.

"But to do the same now, with four races in a row, I think is an outstanding performance."

Although Mercedes headed into the campaign as favourites after a strong winter of testing, Lauda says that he has been surprised that things have come together so well.

"I never expected it," he explained. "For me, the most important thing is that we got the reliability going.

"We got everything together in a proper way.

"The others made it in the past, but never in the first year of completely new regulations."