Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has revealed the volatile performance fluctuations Mercedes has endured with its 2024 Formula 1 car have even made him “irritated”.
Mercedes entered the current campaign with renewed enthusiasm that its revamped W15 car had eradicated the spiteful rear-end characteristics of its predecessors.
However, Mercedes has since endured its worst beginning to a season since 2011 with a total of 52 points from the opening five races and zero grand prix podiums.
The German marque has shown glimmers of promise across certain sessions, but that encouraging pace has dissipated relative to its rivals in the defining moments.
During an interview with Austrian outlet OE24, Marko was asked whether Mercedes seeming to get worse with each passing term should see the alarm bells ringing.
Marko, who has been linked with a switch to Mercedes amid Toto Wolff’s desire to prise Max Verstappen from Red Bull for 2025, replied: “They probably do anyway.
“What irritates me so much is that the car is really fast at times, and at times it runs at absolute peak times.
“Then I think: ‘Look, now they get it!’ But that’s always just a flash in the pan.”
Mercedes’ inconsistent form was summarised in China last weekend as Lewis Hamilton capitalised on his car coming “alive” in the wet to qualify second for the Sprint.
But while the seven-time champion was able to convert that into second in the truncated race, Hamilton then slipped to a surprise Q1 elimination as he wound up 18th.
Hamilton, who recovered through the order to ninth in the race, bemoaned a mistake at the Turn 14 hairpin and trialling an aggressive set-up configuration for his woes.
However, with team-mate George Russell trundling home in a distant seventh place, Marko assessed that Mercedes’ struggles aren’t attributable to short-term problems.
“It doesn’t happen overnight that you slump like this,” Marko assessed. “What is alarming is that they have not been competitive for the third season now.”
Hamilton has encountered his poorest return since moving to Mercedes in 2013, but the Briton will exit the squad at the end of the season to pursue a move to Ferrari.
