Somewhat fortuitously, Mercedes says its decision last year to make its production carbon-neutral from this year left it well placed to respond. “We had a big advantage, because we finalised a large green energy contract for all of our factories last year,” says Jörg Burzer, the MBG board member responsible for production and supply chains. “This is a contract which focuses on wind, solar and hydroelectric power.” A developing subplot around Mercedes' struggles is the future of Hamilton, and his designs on becoming the sport's first driver to win eight world championships. I was looking at my arm, not really sure what was going on and didn’t realise I had been hit by a piece of debris. People behind me were scrambling around, fighting over who gets this piece of wheel and I’m like ‘what’s that?’ We pieced it together and I realised: ‘Holy shit, that’s just hit me in the arm.’” READ MORE: Red Bull and Ferrari are ‘too far ahead' says Russell as Mercedes end Friday practice looking for pace

INEOS already has a wide sports portfolio with interests in athletics, cycling, football and the America’s Cup yacht race and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the company is a natural fit for his team. Germany’s largest manufacturers, including Mercedes and the other carmakers, have enjoyed booming sales in China, while the country’s Mittelstand of small and medium-sized engineering companies have powered Chinese production.Electric energy consumption and range have been determined on the basis of Regulation (EC) No. 692/2008 according to NEDC. Electric energy consumption and range depend on the vehicle configuration. The electricity consumption was determined on the basis of Regulation 2017/1151/EU according to WLTP. Germany’s businesses and households had grown accustomed to plentiful Russian gas and oil for many years. Russia accounted for more than half of the country’s natural gas supply in 2020. It was therefore a major surprise when it became clear they had been caught out by the new regulations and were suffering - more than any other team - with porpoising, a bouncing phenomenon that was an unexpected consequence of the way the 2022 cars had been designed under the new rules. In addition, Mercedes lost the head of their mechanical engineering division, Ben Hodgkinson, to Red Bull last year as their rivals went on an aggressive recruitment drive for their new powertrains division, which saw around 15 other employees make the move.

Formula One is so successful because it is sport and we follow the rulebook and that gives great entertainment, as long as it is clear how it is being interpreted. Whether you call a VSC or a safety car or you red‑flag it, as long as we understand in terms of us being able to plan and in having the same rules for everyone, then that is OK.”

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Nonetheless, Wolff said that in each case it was not clear why the race had been stopped and he echoed Russell’s opinion that alternatives were available. “Both red flags we didn’t see coming,” he said. “Restarts are a great entertainment factor, but we need to understand going forward when a red flag is being put out and when it is a safety car or a VSC. For those incidents you could have applied either. Damon Hill believes Mercedes may have got their 2023 concept fundamentally wrong, and will struggle to close the gap on Red Bull this season They were well off the pace as Red Bull and Ferrari battled for wins throughout the first half of the season and were clearly out of championship contention long before the campaign reached its halfway point. Any new car concept is most likely going to be something arriving for 2024, so the question is how soon does Mercedes switch off work on the current car? But those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel - you can't do them overnight. There is quite a lot of development that you've got to do around any sort of big change in geometry in that area.

Frustratingly for Mercedes, their hopes of challenging for titles this season already appear to be extremely low, and the question for many is whether they can rebuild for the 2024 campaign.Mercedes have opted to celebrate by running a ‘Pride Star’ emblem on both their W13 challenger and Hamilton and George Russell’s helmets for the next three Grands Prix, as part of their wider ‘Accelerate 25’ programme, with Hamilton – who earlier this week wished a “Happy Pride” to his social media followers – revealing what the move meant to him. Mercedes has full faith in its recent strategic decisions, says Burzer. “We are very closely connected to China on the product and market side, and of course we are a promoter of global trade.” These decisions include its push towards more electric vehicles and “preparing products for the future and according to market conditions in China and the US, and our ‘luxury’ strategy”, Burzer says. The shift in the country’s diplomatic approach has been perhaps more seismic. Putin’s war has prompted the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to effectively break with the decades-long approach of Wandel durch Handel: the belief that social and political change in other countries can be brought about by trade. In the first stint Russell was told by his engineer “target plus eight” – indicating they wanted him to run eight laps more on the soft tyre than originally planned. That is 15% of the total race distance, so represents a large change to expectation.

I think we had really good time between the test and the race to analyse what happened," Russell said ahead of first practice. "There were a few things going on with the car that we didn't quite expect, but we've been able to resolve pretty easily. We were just working in slightly the wrong window. So we'll put that change in for this weekend."The chart below shows free air races with no influence from traffic or car pace. It simply shows the difference in race time though tyre selection and stop lap.