Toto Wolff declared "we just need to get our act together" before appearing to admit that Mercedes need to abandon their car concept.
Mercedes did not exactly set the world alight in Bahrain on Saturday, during the first qualifying session of the new season. They got through to Q3 without too much fuss and looked competitive for a while, but were only able to go sixth and seventh fastest in that final part of the session.
Reacting, team principal Wolff said he and Lewis Hamilton are "absolutely in the same choir" regarding the concept of the W14. The team stuck to their guns when designing the new car, but seem to have now admitted that they are going to struggle to match their rivals unless they change course.
"We are super-critical of ourselves and what we need to achieve. We are looking at everything to get it right with the concept," said Wolff. "Everybody in the engineering team thinks like that and we just need to get our act together."
He then went on to suggest they might now have a complete rethink as they strive to get back on terms with Red Bull and Ferrari. The Austrian added: "I don't think that this package is going to be competitive eventually.
"We gave it our best go last year, also over the winter, and now we all just need to regroup, sit down with the engineers, be totally non-dogmatic, ask what is the development direction we want to pursue in order to be able to win races.
"I'm sure we can win races this season but it's really the medium and long-term that we need to look at. Every day counts. We are losing these days. It's going to be difficult to catch up so therefore we need to take the right decisions now to set the sails in the right direction.
"I'm looking at what we can find next week, what we can add to the car, what is the change of direction that we can implement and how quickly can we do that, and maybe we can turn the ship around this year. But it needs a lot to change the pecking order."
But Wolff, rather contradictory, was not too disheartened with the Mercedes performance in Bahrain qualifying, saying: "The gap is not ridiculous considering we only ran one tyre at the end but it is not where we want to be." And although it seems extremely fanciful right now, Wolff is promising to get 38-year-old Hamilton that record-breaking title.
He said: "We are going to get his eighth. He has, compared to [Fernando] Alonso, another four years in him as a minimum so we just need to get it done. Even if I have to push him around the track to win the eighth, I am going to do everything that is needed."
