Mercedes boss Toto Wolff fumed that his team's performance "was not good enough" on Sunday after George Russell and Lewis Hamilton laboured to sixth and ninth respectively at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Mercedes have won six times at the Shanghai International Circuit in the past, more than any other team, but were never in the running as Formula One returned after a five-year absence.
P18➡️P9
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) April 21, 2024
Up nine places in the Chinese GP and securing some valuable points 💪 pic.twitter.com/EyAXjSfPul
"Considering where we started today and more importantly, where we had put the cars in terms of their set-up after the sprint, P6 and P9 was the best prediction from our pre-race simulations," Wolff said.
"The car that we have under us is not currently fast enough. It's not good enough."
Hamilton complained during the race that his car was slow, unresponsive and hard to turn in slow corners with the set-up changes made after coming second in the Saturday sprint.
The seven-time world champion went backwards in qualifying, starting 18th on the grid.
"We must make sure that we are not trying to find a silver bullet each weekend when it comes to how we run the car," said Wolff, who thought that making too many changes had been detrimental in the search for pace.
"We need to focus on getting the basics right," he cautioned.
"The race car was not fast. You hear him saying the car doesn't turn and this is what we can see in the data."
Wolff said an improvement package would be ready by the next race in Miami in two weeks.
"The pack behind Red Bull is close, and small details can make a big difference in terms of finishing position," said Wolff.
"We have developments to bring in the coming races which we hope are a step forward and will improve the car."
Hamilton won the last time a grand prix was held at Shanghai in 2019, but he was never in the podium hunt five years on.
"I went forwards and got into the points, but it was a tough race. Ultimately, I made a bad set-up change to the car yesterday and I paid the price for it," said Hamilton.
"I plan to make sure I don't do that in the future."
AFP