One aspect of Mercedes’ struggles this season is a ‘grave concern’, according to Sky Sports F1 pundit Martin Brundle. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished seventh and ninth respectively in Japan last weekend to continue their miserable start to the season.
After four races, the Silver Arrows have only amassed 34 points. That leaves them 35 points behind third-place McLaren, and a full 86 adrift of Ferrari in second.
Speaking on the Sky F1 podcast, Brundle assessed the German manufacturer’s current woes. They were Red Bull’s closest challenger last season but appear to have regressed in their pursuit of the reigning champions.
103-time race-winner Hamilton is joining Ferrari for the 2025 season, and Ralf Schumacher has suggested he ‘no longer believes’ in his team. The 39-year-old in particular has struggled to get to grips with the new W15, finishing no higher than seventh at the first four weekends.
It’s been 13 years since Mercedes last experienced this long a podium drought at the start of the season. And at this stage, there appears little prospect of Toto Wolff’s team standing on the top step at any point this year.
What worries Martin Brundle most about Mercedes
Brundle says Mercedes’ inability to ‘understand’ their car is a long-term and central problem. Every so often, it appears as if they’ve made a breakthrough, but then they fall away.
The Brackley outfit didn’t bring any upgrades to Suzuka, unlike Red Bull and Ferrari, because they were focused on optimising performances through set-up chances instead. That appeared to pay off on Friday as they had, in Damon Hill’s assessment, their most positive day ‘for years’. The end result, however, was still a disappointment.
Brundle said: “They’ve got to understand this car and I think that’s the grave concern for all of the people there. There’s a lot of very clever people with a huge amount of resource and performance tools and budget, so I’m not going try and second guess what’s wrong with it, or state what I think’s wrong with it, because if they don’t know, then I certainly don’t.
“They cannot get a handle on these ground-effect cars. This is the third season. They turn up, they think they’ve aced it, a lot of positive noises, then it still bounces a little bit with the porpoising.
“But their problem is, from time to time, the thing performs beautifully, and they’re really quite fast in phases, but they can’t seem to reproduce that session to session, let alone day to day, let alone Grand Prix to Grand Prix. This is the problem they’ve got, this knife-edge of a car, that sometimes looks like they’ve finally sorted it, and more of the time they just can’t understand it.”
Will Carlos Sainz go to Mercedes?
The question for Wolff is whether he can still attract the highest calibre of driver as he searches for Hamilton’s replacement. Mercedes won eight straight constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021 but they’re now running in the lower reaches of the top 10.
Some, however, may regard Brackley as the place to be ahead of the 2026 regulation changes. The last time we saw such a significant reset (the move V8s to V6s), they stole a march on the field.
Carlos Sainz, the victim of Hamilton’s move to Ferrari, could bank on a repeat in a couple of years and push for a move. But it’s not yet clear whether Wolff truly wants him, with Hill noting the absence of any ‘welcoming noises’.
While he finished ahead of both Russell and Hamilton in Japan, the vacancy could also appeal to Fernando Alonso as he hunts one last shot at a third world title. But Wolff may seek a longer-term option in academy driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who could benefit from avoiding the pressure of a title fight in his debut season, assuming Mercedes can’t find a miraculous fix for their issues before next year.
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