28 April, 2021 Mercedes had such an advantage early in Formula 1’s V6 turbo hybrid era that they rarely used full power in qualifying for fear the rules would be changed to rein them in, according to former technical director Paddy Lowe. Mercedes have won every title since 2014, a record run of seven successive drivers’ and constructors’ world championships, and they lead both going into this weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix. Lowe told F1’s “Beyond The Grid” podcast that the first pre-season test of 2014 had showed some rivals were in “desperate disarray” while his team were in “reasonably good shape”. An upgrade for a subsequent test produced another big jump in horsepower and “we knew at that point that we were in some quite special territory”.