Mercedes have not started the season as strongly as they would have liked. They are currently behind in terms of performance against the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull on the grid. But Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko is refusing to count out the world champions from the title fight.

The German team has shown some signs of improvement over the past couple of races. But in terms of the complete package, they are still lacking pace as compared to the front runners. But their mere presence on the grid is a warning for their rivals.

Marko mentioned it is difficult to predict the performance of Mercedes currently. “Mercedes is doing incredibly fast laps in practice and also in the races, both with Hamilton and Russell.”

“Not continuously, so for us, it’s difficult to interpret where that lap time is coming from. Listening closely to the Mercedes people, I don’t think they know either. But the dangerous thing is the potential seems to be there.”

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“And once that can be called up over a race distance, then they’ll be right up there or right at the front,” said the Red Bull advisor to Formel1.de.

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Mercedes have shown that they do have the inherent pace in the W13 on some occasions. Yet they could not fully extract the performance throughout a complete weekend and score maximum points.

Can Mercedes match Red Bull in Baku?

It would be interesting to see if the German team is a bit more competitive on the streets of Baku against the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull. In Barcelona, they showed signs of improvement and were closer to the leaders than they have been this season.

The Baku track might suit the German team a bit more than Monaco. If they get a hold of the porpoising issue in the long straight, then the 90-degree slow corners can play to the strengths of the W13, which showed good performance at the corners in Miami.

Let’s see when can the world champions fully get over their problems this season.