Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda has claimed the German manufacturer could match Ferrari and quit Formula 1 after 2020.

While the Italian team has been vocal in their threats to leave should they not like the rule changes Liberty Media wants to introduce, Mercedes have been slightly calmer albeit while sharing the same opinions with the two on-track rivals closely aligned politically.

Former triple world champion Lauda is known for being more outspoken than motorsport boss Toto Wolff, however, and the Austrian echoed Ferrari when recently asked about the future.

“There is certainly a limit for the top teams. It’s possible that one or the other will get out if it goes in the wrong direction,” he was quoted by PlanetF1.

Lauda is also critical of two significant changes made this season which have fundamentally changed the visual of the sport.

“The Halo system is the worst thing ever done to F1,” he declared, this coming from one of the biggest advocators of safety after his near-fatal crash on the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 1976.

And the other topic...

“I do not understand why the grid girls were abolished," he moaned. "The Americans seem to have to swim in the #Metoo movement.

“The grid girls are not naked for God’s sake.”