Marko: Bahrain F1 GP bland until safety car

Lewis Hamilton VS Nico Rosberg

Dr Helmut Marko is not convinced Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix was a F1 thriller.

After all the carping about the radical 2014 rules having turned F1 into 'formula yawn', Bahrain was hailed as a timely and highly-entertaining spectacle.

"There was a lot of criticism beforehand," Mercedes' Nico Rosberg told German television ARD as Tuesday as he began post-race testing in Bahrain.

"But people who watched the race tell me it was one of the best ever."

But Marko, whose employer Red Bull is one of the teams most vocally unhappy with the new regulations, is not so sure.

"Only after the safety car was it a really great race," the outspoken Austrian told Red Bull-owned Servus TV.

There were only ten laps of the 57-lap Bahrain race left when the safety car for Esteban Gutierrez's roll-over shunt finally pulled into the pits.

It was then that Lewis Hamilton's epic duel with his Mercedes teammate Rosberg really began.

"If the safety car had not come out, it would have been a relatively bland race," Marko claims.

Rosberg said it is "logical" that Mercedes' rivals are not happy with the current situation.

"We made the best of the new rules and are absolutely dominant at the moment," he admitted. "That the other teams don't like it is logical.

"Last year, it was Red Bull doing the best job, now it's us. So it's not nice that now the others are crying all of a sudden about rule changes," Rosberg added.

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