Toto Wolff must be tearing his hair out watching Mercedes from Monaco after Red Bull claim constructors’ championship following  Max Verstappen’s victory in Japanese Grand Prix

Somewhere in Monaco, Toto Wolff is undoubtedly pulling his hair out.

It’s hard to imagine a worse crash on Earth than the one the Mercedes chief suffered this week. From elation after his team’s strongest performance of the season in Singapore, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell setting the fastest pace on track, to the seven-time champion openly admitting he had ‘no chance’ of winning here in Suzuka there is a comedown.

You wouldn’t blame Wolff if he spent the weekend cowering behind his sofa while his British drivers toiled 8,000 miles east in Japan, recovering from knee surgery – spare a thought for the rugged Austrian.

To add to his misery, Christian Horner parades around the paddock having put the final nail in Mercedes’ coffin after clinching the Constructors’ Championship. Max Verstappen managed to win again in Suzuka and came one step closer to winning his third world title, probably in two weeks in Qatar. He is no less than 210 points ahead of Hamilton, his nemesis from two years ago, in third place.

But deep down, Wolff will know that his team has no business dealing with Red Bull and their Dutch master this year.

Max Verstappen managed to win again in Suzuka, with a lead of 210 points over Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship standings

The victory for Verstappen also meant the end of the constructors’ championship for Red Bull

So how did Mercedes go from cloud nine to the depths of despair in just one week? The first warning signs were given by Hamilton on a humid Thursday afternoon in Suzuka.

“I would think that if they (Red Bull) don’t have a 30-second lead like in the past, something is going on,” predicted the seven-time world champion, apparently already beaten despite last week’s morale-boosting performance.

‘It will be interesting to see how the weekend goes. I hope we get closer, and I hope they’re not as fast as the 30-second lead.”

Admittedly, there are things that Mercedes has no control over. It’s no secret that their success in Singapore came down to a near-perfect racing strategy, coupled with a car that was ideally suited to the magical Marina Bay circuit, with the W14 finding pace on the slower parts of the circuit. It was always going to be a tall order to match that speed in Suzuka, where long, fast corners benefit Red Bull and McLaren.

But there are steps that can be taken to ensure that you can at least compete with your rivals. On Friday morning there was the palpable feeling of the car simply being thrown onto the track, followed by the realization that the team had gotten the setup completely wrong, resulting in a frantic 24-hour catch-up with the rest of the field. It’s the Formula 1 equivalent of a schoolboy who has been up all night doing his exams, leaving it until the last minute.

And the proof was in the pudding as Hamilton crossed the line in 16th and 14th in both practice sessions, while Russell took his car to fifth.

“We’ll work on it tonight and turn it around tomorrow,” Hamilton said. “But we’re certainly not going to win this weekend.

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Hamilton highlighted why Mercedes were so far off the pace, saying: ‘It’s finding out what’s wrong. In the last race (in Singapore) we were much closer, but we didn’t have many fast corners, just one, but not as fast as the corners here.’

Things didn’t get much better in qualifying either. On paper, Mercedes has the perfect duo to challenge Verstappen: Hamilton is statistically the greatest qualifier of all time with 104 poles, while Russell was not nicknamed ‘Mr Saturday’ for nothing during his time at Williams.

Hamilton said Mercedes had ‘no chance’ of winning in Japan despite competing in Singapore

The podium finish of the seven-time world champion in Singapore offered hope that Mercedes would improve

It was always going to be difficult to emulate that success at Suzuka, where the long, fast corners benefit Red Bull and McLaren.

But the pair could not cope with the imperious Verstappen and found themselves out of reach of the two McLarens. Russell was more than seven-tenths behind Australian rookie Oscar Piastri, while Hamilton, who looked like the third member of Daft Punk with his new chrome helmet, was almost half a second behind the front row.
Ultimately, Mercedes’ desperate attempt to salvage a strong result may be a case of too little, too late. On a weekend where Red Bull wrapped up the Constructors’ Championship, this, from Hamilton, perfectly sums up why the Brackley team are behind their rivals.

“We normally have at least one suboptimal day every weekend, so Friday was like that,” he said.

In a sport where margins couldn’t be smaller, Mercedes must turn their self-inflicted blows into knockout punches. Japan has taught them a painful lesson.