Mercedes team principal Wolff despond�🍎�ently described last weekend in Brazil as his worst in 13 years.

🔯Lewis Hamilton finished eighth and George Russell retired from 11th, a stark drop-off after Mercedes had꧙ claimed a podium finish in Mexico.

Schiff said on the podcast: “We all heard Toto’s wordওs. Itꦛ seemed that he was not in a good place.

“I think those words we🍰re quite strong. I’m not su🐟re if it was an emotional reaction.

“They lacked pace, they used up the tyres which is uncharacteristic for their car, and they had reliability issues. A lot of things went wrong but they had two podiums, they were moving in a pos🅰itive trajectory.

“Although it was a dramatic result, it seems li⭕ke it may be a once-off.

“We’ve seen꧋ that car, in the past, as Toto described it ‘on a knife-edg💦e’.

“I’m sure they’re having major debriefs now.

“I’m not sure if we should take Toto’s reaction with a pinch🎀 of salt. I think it was pessi🙈mistic outlook.

“Recent history suggests they a🔥ren’t in such a terrible place.”

Schiff believes the dreadful Brazil weekend could aid Mercedes’ decision over their concept for next year's W15: “T꧙here has been doubt on the concept perspective.

“Do they stick to this concept? Do they not?

“They had gone in the direction tha💛t they weren’t. But when the car starts performing positively they have doubts about the choice that they made.

“This was a learning curve.”

Damon Hill added: “They know it’s wrong,ꦗ they’ve admitted that.”

Their ‘zeropod’ philo♛sophy is widely expected to be ditched in 2024 for a design more similar to Red Bull’s RB19.

Mercedes have🐽 m💜oved James Allison back into the role of technical director, while Mike Elliott has left the team.

Hill said: “There are key people who have drifted away from the team. Are w♔e seeing the effects?

“In America they looked g🌃reat except they w꧑ere disqualified.

“Maybe they erred on the side of safety too much. Thes♊e cars are incredible fickle. The F1 stands for Fickle, at the moment, in Formula❀ 1.

“Everyo🎉ne is up and down. In previous races, Aston Martin were nowhere, now suddenly the💧y’re up there and looking good.

“You don’t need much to be out of the window. The exce♐ption is Red Bull but maybe even they would say that Singapore caught them out.

“These car𒁃s are dependent on precise setup for each tracꦇk.

“I k𝕴now Toto operates a no-blame culture but he seemed to take all the blame himself, he was willing to admit that it wasn’t acce🐎ptable. It was a tough weekend.”

Schiff said: “There has been confu💙sion with this car, when they set it up, it does things they weren’t expecting,” she said.

“We thought they’d passed that phase.

“This weekend proved again🐠 that it’s all about the operational window of where the car does and doesn’t work. They’re still on the fence.

“It is possible th⛎at these cars are just so sensitive to setup.”