F1 fans take aim at Red Bull as Mercedes unveil special Singapore Grand Prix livery

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Mercedes are hoping to return to form at the Singapore Grand Prix this weekend. The Silver Arrows won three of the four races before the summer break but have lost their momentum since.

George Russell scored a podium in Azerbaijan last time out, but that was only after the collision between Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez on the penultimate lap. Lewis Hamilton had to settle for ninth in the sister car after a pitlane start.

Mercedes were the third-fastest team at Monza, with Hamilton fifth and Russell seventh, and the fourth-fastest at Zandvoort, where they picked up just 10 points. Any hope of challenging Ferrari for third place in the standings seems to have evaporated.

Charles Leclerc’s run of four straight podiums has lifted the Scuderia onto 425 points. With seven races to go, Mercedes sit 116 behind on 309.

Toto Wolff’s squad struggled in Singapore in the first year of F1’s ground-effect era, with Hamilton ninth and Russell missing out on the points in 14th. But they challenged for victory at Marina Bay last year when the dominant Red Bull team suddenly lost performance.

Russell was pressuring the top two of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz before crashing out on the final lap. That saw Hamilton inherit the final podium place.

F1 fans mock Red Bull after Mercedes’ Singapore GP livery reveal

Mercedes have unveiled a special livery for this weekend’s race to mark the 50th anniversary of title sponsor Petronas. They will run the brand’s teal colours on the nose of their car, rather than the customary silver.

Rivals Red Bull were also planning to run a custom design for the races in Singapore and Austin. But according to Autosport, they’ve now scrapped this idea.

They discovered at their factory that the new paintwork made the car around one kilogram heavier. This equated to a performance loss of 0.03 seconds per lap, and they didn’t want to take the risk.

Predictably, F1 fans poked fun at Red Bull as Mercedes announced their one-off design. @JarrodR21 asked if they could ‘confirm the livery doesn’t add extra weight’, while @jones62767 made a similar joke.

@NadxCL16 wrote ‘at least someone has a special livery’, while @swiftsambi said the ‘tables have turned’ after Red Bull’s decision. @leclerc1687 thought the timing was ‘just so funny’.

Mercedes slammed for ‘nonsense’ complaints after Baku

Tyres have been at the centre of Mercedes’ issues this season. Hamilton in particular has struggled with the Pirelli rubber.

Hamilton ‘disappears’ during race weekends because he struggles to bring the tyres up to temperature when the track has gripped up. Russell seems to better understand what’s required, hence his unassailable qualifying advantage.

But even the former Williams driver is unhappy. Russell wants talks over the ‘infuriating’ tyres, specifically the inconsistency from one compound to another.

However, Peter Windsor called Mercedes’ tyre complaints ‘nonsense’. If it was truly an issue, he says, then teams up and down the pitlane would be making similar complaints.