F1 pundit Martin Brundle has compared the struggles of Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes to that of Liverpool FC in the Premier League.
Hamilton looked untouchable as he won four consecutive F1 championships between 2017 and 2020. However, after controversially losing out to Max Verstappen in 2021 last year the Mercedes W13 struggled to match the pace of rivals Red Bull and Ferrari.
Brundle has matched the worrying decline of Mercedes to that of Liverpool, who won the Premier League in 2020 and also finished runners-up last season. However, Jurgen Klopp's side have struggled this season and currently sit seventh - 21 points behind leaders Arsenal.
"It's odd in a team, look at Liverpool right now for example, with just nuances or a couple of changes of personnel and philosophy or maybe a lack of confidence," said Brundle reflecting on pre-season testing.
"That's what I'm seeing at Mercedes at the moment. I thought last year they would ace that car really quickly. When we saw it in the paddock a year ago we thought 'nobody is going to see that car for dust' which was wrong.
"Clearly they've still got to finesse it and they needed to do it early. They'll need to get in there quickly and sort it."
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Despite having last year's car heavily criticised, Mercedes have stuck with their 'zeropod' aero concept which other teams have ignored. Silver Arrows chiefs have repeatedly backed the lack of sidepods, which they said had nothing to do with their performance struggles last year.
Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott denied claims the team had a 'plan B' if this season's car was slower than their rivals. Fellow Sky Sports pundit Karun Chandhok said that Mercedes designers would have taken a confidence blow due to the problems last year's car suffered.
He added: "Designing a race car is an art, it's a creative process with the underpinnings of physics and mathematics but you need the creative juices to flow.
"These designers who have come up with a concept at Mercedes have taken a bit of a battering, their drivers weren't happy and their team boss was pretty vocal publicly calling out what a bad car it was. Now they've come up with this car that hasn't hit the ground running. This confidence thing, what happens in 2024? We get through the first half of this year and maybe they unlock this untapped potential that they keep talking about.
"But if they don't, then what? At what stage do they give up on this concept and start from scratch."
