Niki Lauda with Paddy Lowe Niki Lauda has admitted Mercedes have upped its Formula 1 budget in the quest to chase down the sport's top teams. As the German marque looks set to dominate the 2014 season with a superior ‘power unit' for the new era, paddock reports indicate Mercedes might have spent a staggering 500 million on the development of its turbo V6. The German newspaper Welt said that figure is wildly wide of the mark, but team chairman Niki Lauda admits Mercedes did make a decision to spend more. 'The budget under the dictate of the RRA (voluntary resource restriction agreement) was the first major stumbling block,' said the great Austrian, 'because in practice it was not...
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