Mercedes forced to confront dreaded foe's return after tough Imola GP

Mercedes team representative, in its CEO Toto Wolff's absence, has clarified where the German team's season has starte to go awry.

"We have found ourselves front limited at some circuits so far this year, so the work this weekend has been on the rear axle and that's been our big limitation," Lord said to media including GPblog after the race in Imola.

"It's clear if anything it felt like the gap between our qualifying pace and our race pace was bigger this weekend in the race today rather than smaller which obviously was the aim of the work that we've been doing," added Lord regarding Mercedes missing the mark ahead of the race.

Today's race also left Mercedes with the tough task of facing the fact that their dreaded and long-time foe since the introduction of the ground effect rules, losing the development direction, has indeed made an unexpected comeback.