Coulthard reprimands Wolff: 'That was a very strong statement'

It was certainly not a roaring start for Mercedes: Lewis Hamilton and George Russell could not connect with the leading team, had to put up with the Aston Martins ahead of them and ended the opening race of the season in fifth and seventh place, respectively. The gap to race winner Max Verstappen was as much as 50 seconds.

After the race, Wolff was scathing about the car's design. "Everything is wrong with us," stated the Austrian, who further claimed that there is a risk that Mercedes cannot compete for wins at any point this season. According to Coulthard, that is far too premature and does no good to the team dynamics.

"I think it was brutal," Coulthard stated. "This car has only been alive for six days, a few days of testing, three days here. I don’t know where he’s coming from with that. They clearly have to try and follow the pack now. But that is like a big kick in the whatnots for design team."

All is not lost yet

Still, Coulthard also has to admit that the gap with Red Bull is very big indeed. Nevertheless, he thinks it is too early for Mercedes to then just write off the whole season.

"I think it will have confirmed that relative to the winning car, " Coulthard acknowledges. "Max won that at an absolute canter. Relative to being defined as best of the rest, potentially they are. OK, [Charles] Leclerc didn’t finish but it’s not as bad as he sort of stated after qualifying."