Hill fears bigger issues at Mercedes: 'Maybe something fundamentally wrong'

Humiliating experience for Mercedes

"Poor old Lewis and George Russell," Hill said about Mercedes' disappointing performance at the Bahrain International Circuit. "I mean, this was a race race that Toto described as his worst day in motor racing. They were humiliated." Hamilton was still quite positive after the race and said he enjoyed his duel with Fernando Alonso, but his team boss thought otherwise.

Hill also sees little positive that Mercedes can take from the performance at the Bahrain GP and the analyst fears that the German racing stable could be in worse shape than in the "disaster year" of 2022. "They were beaten by a customer car. The gap is probably bigger now than it was last year," continued the 1996 World Champion.

Meanwhile, misunderstanding is growing over Mercedes' decision to stick with the W13 concept, the car that gave the team nothing but headaches last year. "They even got the regulations changed a little bit on safety grounds so that the cars were raised up, another one and a half centimeters. And that hasn't helped them it appears," Hill added.

The former F1 driver therefore fears that the problems at Mercedes cannot be solved in the foreseeable future. "Maybe there's fundamentally something wrong with the direction that they've gone in. If that's the case, then they've got a bigger problem," said Hill, referring to the constraints by the budget cap. "They might have to just plug on with what they've got and prove them wrong with their design."