JONATHAN MCEVOY: Mercedes’ woes in Australia had Toto Wolff admitting it was fair to question his future and it’s the only answer he can lay his hands on… they were SLOW and unreliable

Call the town crier! Ring the bells! Max Verstappen did not finish the Australian Grand Prix, his brakes on fire.

The giant grandstand containing many of the record 132,105 sun-soaked fans cheered.

Pole-man and triple world champion Verstappen will likely take this year’s title, and he remains four points clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, this interruption in Melbourne a bump on his high road to further history. 

We also take a moment to salute the brilliant win of Ferrari’s Lazarus, Carlos Sainz, 16 days after emergency appendix surgery, a place ahead of team-mate Leclerc. For the record, Lando Norris was a fine third for McLaren.

Now to Mercedes, where Toto Wolff admitted it was fair to question whether he should continue in his job. Which is about the only answer he can lay his hands on right now. For Lewis Hamilton suffered engine failure and retired from the race 17 of 58 laps in, and George Russell ended teetering at 45 degrees to the Tarmac at the end of the race.

Russell was vying with Fernando Alonso for sixth place at the time, on the penultimate lap. Alonso finished 80 seconds off the pace (albeit a margin somewhat distorted by the virtual safety car at the death), with Russell behind him.

So, after plenty of false dawns over the past two years, Mercedes were a combination of relatively slow and unreliable. They are not usually unreliable but they are reliably relatively slow. Or erratically so, to be honest. Ups and downs, but more downs than ups.

Wolff, 52, sat in the paddock fairly phlegmatically, speaking very honestly as the inquest began into their travails. Hard reality stared him in the face: Hamilton was runner-up last year here in this superb Melbourne venue, yet he was lying ninth when his hopes went pop this time.

He is enduring the worst start of his 18-season career: seventh, ninth and DNF. Even in 2009, a poor year for him and McLaren, he went: disqualified, seventh and sixth – slightly better. He is also faring less well than compatriot Russell, out-qualified on all three occasions this young season by the man who would be his heir.

No wonder the seven-time world champion is feeling out of sorts – or at least his form, more than his public mood, indicates he is. The Mercedes malaise is the prime motivation behind his joining Ferrari next year, replacing Sainz, of all ironies, in search of an eighth championship success.

Wolff, perhaps the most self-reproaching and introspective of team principals as well as the most successful of the past decade and more, said: ‘On one side, I want to punch myself on the nose but on the other side you can see that if you get things right you can turn it around. So you have to believe, but it is a very, very tough time.’

You sensed his torture, his senses being pulled this way and that. This worry is no doubt exacerbated by him owning a third of the £1billion team, along with Mercedes, the parent company, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe. 

Wolff is a businessman, perhaps a billionaire, but not an engineer. He leaves the technical leadership to James Allison, the man Ferrari let escape from them, and a key figure in Mercedes’ halcyon years as serial winners from 2014, so the Austrian should be well-served. But they have no understanding of the technical route they should turn down. 

They have lost key personnel and are in danger of sliding like other fallen giant teams did: struggling to maintain the dominance they once held as if a birthright, an inevitable unravelling going on. Look at Williams and McLaren.

Wolff said: ‘As a corner of this business I need to make sure my contribution is positive and creative so I would be the first one to say that, if somebody has a better idea, tell me because I am entrusted to turn this team around as quickly as possible. I would give my input as to who that could be but we have a physics problem and not a philosophical or organisational one.

‘We have not swallowed a dumb pill since 2021 (when Hamilton lost out on the final lap in controversial circumstances to Verstappen).

‘We don’t understand some of the behaviours of the car and in the past we would have. I look at myself in the mirror every single day about everything I do and if I believe I should ask the “manager question”. It is a fair question, but it is not what I feel at the moment that I should (quit).

‘This is my job and I will not stop it. I will not go to Chelsea or Liverpool, or over to Ferrari. I have not got that choice, which is also unfortunate! I am not an employee who has said I have had enough of this. My hamster wheel keeps spinning and I cannot jump out.

‘There were times in the race where we massively lacked pace and then there were times when we were doing OK – still not where we wanted to be, however.

‘We started this season in the belief that this car was better than last year’s. Then you look at last season, Leclerc crashed out and Sainz was fourth and McLaren were 17th, 18th, yet they were 40 seconds ahead of us today.’

Wolff believed he would keep Hamilton forever. Lewis told him so, before suddenly telling him he would be decamping to the red corner. Hamilton, however, has grown older, 39, yet he may be invigorated when he goes to Ferrari. He will win the Scuderia around through the force of his personality and experience and act as the fulcrum in all they do.

But Wolff has to deal with his drivers for now, keeping them believing an upturn is coming.

Asked if he needed a new designer, Wolff smiled. ‘You have the first idea: a designer,’ he said. ‘Data don’t make decisions; humans do.

‘The drivers are super in this whole set-up. Lewis is as good as can be. He’s in a situation where it is super-frustrating that we’re not where we want to be but he is looking after the fence, but that is not his main priority today.’

Who is to say an era has not ended?