“Are you ok, hun?” Red Bull takes a dig at Mercedes’ latest Instagram post recalling its glory days in F1

Mercedes recently posted a meme comparing the performance between the disappointing W15 and the iconic W11 from the 2020 F1 season.

“Are you ok, hun?” Red Bull takes a dig at Mercedes’ latest Instagram post recalling its glory days in F1

Max Verstappen (L), Lewis Hamilton (R), Mercedes' meme (via @MercedesAMGF1/Instagram).

The 2024 season is well underway with four exciting races so far. Despite some great pace from Red Bull and Ferrari, Mercedes continued their ground-effect era struggles as the team hasn’t managed a podium finish yet. Amidst the woeful start to the season, Mercedes’ Instagram page took a jibe at their current W15 challenger while recalling the highly successful W11 chassis from 2020.

The W15 challenger was talked about highly before the pre-season testing was underway. Mercedes was thought to showcase great improvement and finally compete with the Red Bulls for victory. Toto Wolff had mentioned how the team would stick to the ‘conventional’ route. However, as evident from the first four races, Mercedes is heavily struggling to find the perfect balance in the challenger.

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Mercedes’ Instagram page posted a picture comprising the W15 and the W11 cars. The picture mentioned that one doesn’t deserve someone at their best, like the W11 chassis if they didn’t like them at their worst, hinting at the poor performance of the W15 challenger. The W11 chassis performed exceptionally well and helped Lewis Hamilton achieve his record-match seventh world title.

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Red Bull’s Instagram page was quick to respond to this hilarious meme. Milton Keynes asked if the people at Mercedes were okay. Additionally, Milton Keynes’ admin referred to Mercedes’ admin as ‘hun’ to rub more salt in the wounds. Hence, fans laughed at the way the admins were so unserious and jolly.

…are you ok, hun?
Red Bull’s Instagram account responded to Mercedes’ post

Toto Wolff claims Mercedes W15 on-track performance ‘doesn’t make sense’

As seen on Instagram, Mercedes hasn’t hesitated to accept its shortcomings when it came to the W15 challenger after the Japanese GP. The Austrian billionaire mentioned that the car was very complex in terms of aero and mechanical balance. Additionally, Wolff recalled that Mercedes stuck to a certain trajectory when it came to developing a challenger. Hence, the team came to a point where they needed to do something different.

I think the car is so complex for us, where we put it in terms of the aero balance and mechanical balance, and these two need to correlate. We've followed a certain trajectory over the last years and keep turning and circling. We came to a point to say, OK, we've got to do something different here
Toto Wolff said, as reported by pitdebrief.com.

Moreover, Wolff mentioned that according to the data, the W15 challenger had 70 more points of downforce for the Australian GP. However, this did not result in any gains in terms of speed on-track. Hence, the team principal admitted how the car didn’t make sense for the team to comprehend.

It's saying we have 70 points more downforce in a particular corner in Melbourne than we had last year. But on a lap time, it's not a kilometre per hour faster, so it doesn't make any sense.
Toto Wolff noted.

Brackley needs to work hard on the W15 challenger and bring in major updates soon. The current state of Mercedes will put them way out of competition if things continue. Hence, the team will once again go through its data to understand its underlying issues with its car.

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