Toto Wolff admits that in their current state, a World Championship challenge from Mercedes in 2022 is a “very long shot”.

The reigning Constructors’ champions had the third fastest cars on the grid throughout the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell spending most of the race running fifth and sixth.

But both Red Bull cars retiring towards the end of the race elevated Hamilton up to a place on the podium, with Russell following closely behind to take a P4 finish.

Wolff admitted the team need to work out the source of their issues sooner rather than later, to a degree where he said they would “simply take a chainsaw” to the W13 to assess where they can make quick improvements.