No 'compromise' on 2014 car focus says Mercedes

Mercedes W04

Mercedes says it will not "compromise" its preparations for 2014 by focusing too hard on this year's world championship race.

Many insiders now regard Lewis Hamilton as the most likely challenger to Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel's title lead.

But team director Toto Wolff has reportedly said the team should be more focused now on the huge challenge of the radical new rules for 2014.

"I think there's several different people that have different opinions about it," Briton Hamilton said on Saturday, after capturing his fourth consecutive pole.

It seems, however, that team boss Ross Brawn in fact has the same opinion as Wolff.

"We're not thinking in terms of winning a championship (in 2013)," he is quoted by Sky.

Brawn said it would be "unusual" if Vettel can not take his healthy points lead all the way to November's season finale.

"Obviously I don't want that to sound like we don't want to win the championship, of course we do, but we're not compromising our 2014 programme," he added.

So, Brawn said Mercedes will only do "a small amount of things" in terms of developing the W04 for the rest of this season.

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