Mercedes dominated the field for seven years. From 2014 to 2020, Formula 1 was basically just Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’ playground with a couple of other players occasionally. And in 2021, after spending seven years on the sidelines, Red Bull stepped up to the challenge once again and claimed the Drivers’ title, courtesy of Max Verstappen. After an explosive season that saw a fiery rivalry between Hamilton and Verstappen ignite, the 2022 season was a disappointing spectacle, to say the least. What should’ve been a second part of their rivalry turned out to be utter Verstappen and Red Bull dominance. And based on Mercedes’ performance this season, the situation has stayed the same, if not worse. And Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner made Hamilton & Co. feel worse about it.

After the 2022 regulation changes, Mercedes couldn’t build a car that could fight at the front like it used to. With issues popping up every race weekend, the season was a cakewalk for Red Bull and Verstappen, with a little challenge from Ferrari and Charles Leclerc that fell away too soon. While they should’ve built on their progress last season, it seems as though they’ve both regressed to square one. And Red Bull has as good as won both championships already. So as F1 commenced its summer break, Horner appeared on ESPN’s Unlapped podcast and talked about Red Bull and Verstappen’s dominance this season.

He said, “In February, we already knew we had a good car, but we expected Ferrari to build on last year, and we thought Mercedes would be there too. We were completely surprised that we are so competitive compared to our opponents.” [Translated by Google] Considering how Mercedes has one of the best development teams behind it, Horner was expecting a Mercedes comeback this season. But so far, it hasn’t happened. 

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He continued, “We saw in the race simulations that we were competitive. The Aston Martin then seemed to be the closest to us, and the Mercedes didn’t look great as they continued with their concept.” And halfway through the season, Mercedes still hasn’t figured out a car concept that works on track. And while the Brackley outfit would look to use the summer break to regain its lost footing, it has much bigger problems to sort out first.

Lewis Hamilton & Co. is stuck without a way out at the moment

The annual summer break in F1 is for teams to analyze their first halves of the season and work on improving their cars. But that’s where Hamilton and Mercedes are stuck. The problem is they have very little representative and conclusive data on their W14 challenger that can point them in the right direction. Because of all these ups and downs this season, the Brackley team has no idea what works for the W14, and without understanding their car, how are they expected to improve it? F1 journalist Peter Windsor pointed exactly this out.

In his post-race analysis on YouTube, he said, “Good luck to Lewis going into the summer break. Not sure Mercedes have any of the answers they really need in terms of what they’re going to be doing with the car. And is performance still on a full fuel load a big question mark as we saw in Hungary, and to some extent [in Belgium]?” Apart from this, Hamilton reported that the W14 started porpoising again, a problem they seemed to have gotten around last season.

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With how Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes’ season has gone so far, it legitimizes the incompetence Christian Horner alluded to earlier. But the question is: Can Mercedes turn its season around in the second half?