Martin Brundle believes that Mercedes' current form is leaving everyone confused, including themselves.
Martin Brundle believes that Mercedes' current form is leaving everyone confused, including themselves.
The team seemed to have ups and downs during the Canadian GP weekend, with Friday's practice difficulties followed by better qualifying.
Lewis Hamilton came third in the race - taking the podium for the first time since the season opener in Bahrain - while his teammate George Russell was fourth.
"The Mercedes team is very confused for everyone at the moment, including themselves," Brundle wrote in his column for the .
"On Friday, Lewis declared that the car was unroadworthy and that's exactly what it looked like. In an interview with , he strongly suggested that all that remained now was to extract the best from a bad job for the rest of the long season."
"Toto Wolff, the team boss, said similar things to me in an interview, describing the car as a 'box of m*rda' just a week earlier."
With the team looking for performance gains in Montreal, Russell adopted a bold strategy in qualifying and may have regretted it, according to Brundle.
"George Russell made a pretty bold bet with slicks at the end of qualifying with the track drying out, which I suspect he wouldn't do again. I admire his confidence, but two or three parts of the circuit were still 10 minutes away from being ready."
Although the Silver Arrows came in third and fourth, Brundle thinks the result would have been worse under slightly different circumstances.
"To be realistic, if Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez had had normal performances in qualifying and race, and we hadn't had two virtual safety cars and one real one, the Mercedes guys would have come solidly fifth and sixth."
Still, Brundle is optimistic about Mercedes' prospects for the British GP.
"Again, there seems to be a good car under that little fairing, and they are excited about their chances at Silverstone, which is the next round."