The seven-time world champion has made his worst-ever start to a Formula One season, leaving Silver Arrows seeking for explanations.
How do you address a situation like Mercedes? Not easily, it appears.
For the third season in a row, they are mired in mud. Their best driver, Lewis Hamilton, had clearly seen enough over the winter to decide it was time to go and join Ferrari — and things have only gotten worse since.
Hamilton has broken every record in his career. In Australia, his inability to finish earned him the unfortunate distinction of having the worst start to a Formula One season in 18 attempts.
To date, he has only finished seventh and ninth, which is worse than when he allegedly had a pig of a car that was bouncing all over the place when the new regulations went into effect for the 2022 season.
Mercedes admitted that their design philosophy was utterly flawed, but they remained with it for nearly two seasons.
Toto Wolff, team principal, issued a public apology and stated that they were practically starting from scratch. The zeropods were removed, and a new floor installed.
Their simulation data over the winter suggested they finally had a speedy vehicle, and winter testing in Bahrain appeared to indicate they could be the best of the rest behind the Red Bulls.
How wrong that turned out to be. They are only the fourth-fastest team on the field, and Hamilton is ranked 10th in the drivers’ championship, while teammate George Russell finished Sunday’s race flipped over after a dramatic 170mph crash on the penultimate lap.
The brain scratching, meanwhile, continues unabated at Mercedes. There is a genuine belief that a fast automobile is waiting to emerge, but their engineers are at a loss to make that a reality.
Melbourne was an intriguing case in point. Hamilton was already struggling tenth fastest in the first practice, so changes were made to his car. By the end of the next session, he had dropped to 18th. The fact that he retired from the race after only 17 of 58 laps nearly put an end to his agony.