'Mercedes suffers from loss of staff to Red Bull and Aston Martin'

For Mercedes, the disappointment at the Bahrain Grand Prix came extra hard as they were overtaken by customer team Aston Martin. The German racing stable was said to have been hit hard by the loss of two aero leaders to Red Bull Racing and - of all places - Aston Martin.

"I think what hurts Mercedes the most is that they have lost the numbers one and two in the aero department," explained Michael Schmidt in the podcast of Auto, Motor und Sport. What is even more painful: the number one is now working at Aston Martin, the number two at Red Bull Racing.

'Mercedes suffers from loss to Red Bull'

"The change happened just before the transition phase from the old cars to the ground effect cars," Schmidt added. Mercedes is currently struggling with a car that is still not performing as expected and says it has no 'plan B'. They do, however, reportedly have another design of sidepods ready to go.

Mercedes has based the W14 on last year's design, setting development targets that it says have been met. Apparently, however, these targets were set too low. According to Schmidt, the team does have other options: "I think Mercedes has two variants ready as alternatives."

Aston Martin has already announced it will go for an aggressive update strategy in the 2023 Formula 1 season. According to Fernando Alonso, as many as two-thirds of the AMR23 will have been changed by the end of the season.