We haven't swallowed a dumb pill, says Wolff after poor start

HOW do you solve a problem like Mercedes? Not easily, it would seem.

- Matt Majendie

For the third straight season, they find themselves in the mire. Their star driver Lewis Hamilton had clearly seen enough over the winter to decide it was time to jump ship and head to Ferrari and things have got only worse since.

Hamilton has ripped up all the record books throughout his career. In Australia, his failure to finish gave him the unwanted accolade of his worst start to a Formula One season in 18 attempts.

To date, he has just a seventh and ninth place, worse than when he supposedly had a pig of a car which was bouncing all over the place when the new regulations came into place for the 2022 season.

By their own admission, Mercedes got their design philosophy completely wrong, but stuck to it for nearly two full seasons.

Having performed a very public mea culpa, team principal Toto Wolff said they were effectively starting all over again. The zeropods were scrapped, a new floor brought in.