"They have been humiliated": Former F1 world champion's damning verdict for Mercedes

Former F1 world champion Damon Hill revealed that Mercedes were 'humiliated' by their customer team Aston Martin at the F1 Bahrain GP last weekend.

The former world champions were unable to make an impression in the opening race of the season. They finished P5 and P7 with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell respectively. Meanwhile, Aston Martin finished P3 courtesy of Fernando Alonso and P6 with Lance Stroll.

The German team supplies several aerodynamic parts and a power unit to the iconic British team on the grid. Speaking to Sky Sports, Hill said:

“Poor old Lewis and George Russell. I mean this was a race that Toto described as his worst day in motor racing. They have been humiliated. They were beaten by a customer car.”

However, he mentioned that changing their concept for the W14 this early in the season may not be the right step for a turnaround, adding:

“The thing is, they came out with this very different-looking car to everyone else’s last year. And the question was ‘well, that’s different, why is everyone else going a different way to them?' Then, throughout the year, they persisted with the car that was porpoising and bouncing up and down aerodynamically, and they had terrible trouble trying to fix it."

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"I don’t think they’ve written it off" - Damon Hill on Mercedes' championship chances

Hill believes that after just one bad result, Mercedes have not written themselves off from the title battle against the likes of Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Red Bull.

He said:

“I don’t think so, no. I don’t think they’ve written it off. But they are now faced with reality because, in testing, you could get an idea and you think you might be close and even up to free practice three, so it was only in the final few moments of qualifying that you saw the fundamental gap in performance at six 10ths of a second-plus possibly."

It will be interesting to see if Mercedes are seriously considering changing the concept of their car mid-season, throwing in the towel in the ongoing season, and quashing their title aspirations.