“It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear. When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year,” these iconic lines by The Rembrandts which are also the opening song for the FRIENDS sitcom can be best used to describe how bad things have been for the 8x champion team, Mercedes. With their rockstar driver Lewis Hamilton going to Ferrari, the pressure has doubled for Toto Wolff & co. Ex-Ferrari boss/Manager Peter Windsor (also an F1 expert) hasn’t shied away from ripping the team to shreds.

As a ritual, Windsor goes live on YouTube to give an analysis of the on-track events. He did the same after the Canadian GP. Talking about Mercedes’ shambolic condition; he pointed out their worst mistake so far. And it isn’t letting Lewis go or their recent questionable driver management.

He said, “If Mercedes are unable to attract Adrian Newey at a time they really need him then that’s a worse indictment than anything else you can throw at Mercedes. Whether it be you know the poor driver management or the way this car has been going downhill over the last two and a half years or whatever you want to say or Abu Dhabi. The way all the credits or having that sponsor bringing that sponsor into Formula 1 that then disappeared in disgrace and the CEO is now in jail over you know Mercedes brought that cryptocurrency sponsor in all that stuff is nothing compared with the fact that they haven’t been able to attract Adrian Newey.“

But Peter didn’t stop there. He even went on to question the team’s legacy and their subsequent failure to bring Adrian on board despite that.

Mercedes has been the most dominant team of the turbo hybrid era. The German team won 8 constructors and 7 drivers titles back to back. To add to that, their partnership with Lewis Hamilton (which also went down as the most successful of all time) provided them with unprecedented credibility, helping them attract sponsors and establishing a legacy. Mr. Windsor takes all these things into account to point out that if, despite all of this, Adrian hasn’t come to Mercedes, it is because he doesn’t want to.

He added, “I’m sure Toto would say, well, we never even put out an offer. We didn’t want Adrian Newey. We’re very happy with where we are but if I was on the board of Mercedes, I would be saying ‘Why have we not got Adrian Newey?’, ‘Is he going to Ferrari or McLaren or why is he racing jet skis in Cape Town?’ There would be no answer other than Adrian doesn’t want to work for us. That’s bad. That’s a sad indictment because with the success they’ve had, the budget they’ve got, the prestige they’ve got, with that name they should have been able to attract Adrian.”

Do you think Mercedes can be back on the top despite their current downward spiral?