Toto Wolff warns Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have a 40 per cent chance of title win

What’s gone wrong with Mercedes and can they recover?

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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff warns Lewis Hamilton and George Russell may only have a 40 per cent chance of lifting the title at the end of the season. He said the odds of the Silver Arrows winning the drivers or teams’ championships were low after their bad start to 2022.

The German manufacturer has been unable to sort out its performance issues and has been the third-fastest car at every race so far. However, when asked if a title challenge was completely out of the question, Wolff still refused to write anything out.

He claimed Mercedes could “unlock the potential” of their car and warned their rivals could still suffer issues that will cost them points

Wolff told GP Fans: “If we look at it from a mathematical standpoint and probability, I would probably say that the odds are eight-to-two but this is motor racing and anything can happen. Teams can DNF and if we unlock the potential of the car then we can arrive back in the game.

“So as a motor racer, I would say it is probably 40-60. As a mathematician, I would say the odds are worse against us.”

Mercedes currently lie second in the teams’ standings with Russell also sitting second in the drivers’ table. But the German manufacturer has mostly relied on others’ misfortune and now has a massive points gap to early favourites Ferrari.

The Silver Arrows are almost 50 points behind the Prancing Horse with Russell 34 points behind Charles Leclerc. Red Bull suffered a double retirement in Bahrain while Max Verstappen was also forced to retire in Australia.

It means the Dutchman has thrown away at least 36 points from two nailed on second-place finishes. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz also failed to score in Australia while Russell picked up his third successive top-five finish.

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Both Mercedes drivers have finished all three races in points-paying positions, the only squad to do so out of the top three teams. After the race, Russell claimed the season would be based on “results not pace” as he praised his team’s reliability.

The team have admitted they are simply trying to limit the damage at this stage of the campaign until they get on top of their issues.

Andrew Shovlin, trackside engineering director, said: “But ultimately, we don’t have the underlying car pace to race them, even if our degradation was probably a little better. At this stage of the championship, we’re focused on just two things, damage limitation and learning.”

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