Mercedes were slower than Alpine and Williams in one area during Saudi Arabia GP

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Mercedes lost out to two of the slowest cars on the Formula 1 grid in one area at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The Silver Arrows finished sixth through George Russell and ninth through Lewis Hamilton.

But the data has revealed the full extent of their struggles in one particular department.

While Russell had qualified third for the Bahrain Grand Prix to offer Mercedes some optimism, they could only manage to lock out the fourth row in Jeddah.

Russell was able to gain a place from his starting berth because McLaren driver Lando Norris elected not to pit during an early safety car period.

However, the Englishman found himself stuck behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso for the bulk of his race and couldn’t execute a move.

Hamilton, meanwhile, joined Norris in staying out at first and then emerged in the penultimate points-scoring position when he made his late stop.

He applied pressure to his compatriot but couldn’t get close enough to make an overtake.

Alpine beat Mercedes in high-speed corners

Formu1a.uno journalist Piergiuseppe Donadoni has now shared the data from the event, and it paints a bleak picture for Mercedes.

In the ‘fast’ sections of the track, the W15 was a full 12 km/h slower than Red Bull’s RB20 on average.

Worse still, bottom-of-the-table Alpine were ‘slightly’ quicker in those areas, as were Williams.

Mercedes, who could only outpace Haas from turns four to 10, haemorrhaged time relative to Norris.

Donadoni wrote: “The W15, in the fast sections of Jeddah, was a low midfield car, taking on average 10 km/h from Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin, even 12 km/h from the Red Bull RB20.

“At high speeds the W15 was the penultimate team on the track, only ahead of Haas, as competitive as Sauber and even slightly worse than Alpine, Racing Bulls and Williams.

“The result was a lap time in the snake (from turn 4 to turn 10) that was 3 tenths worse than Leclerc’s Ferrari and 4 tenths worse than Verstappen’s Red Bull in qualifying while in the race it actually widened to 1 second while following, with the same compound, Lando Norris.”

Lewis Hamilton struggles with new car

It’s been a tricky start to the season for Hamilton, who’s lost out to his teammate in the first two races of the year for the first time since 2016.

Russell has scored 18 points thus far, 10 more than the seven-time world champion, and also leads the qualifying battle two-nil.

Hamilton didn’t seem happy with his Mercedes from the moment it left the garage in Jeddah, telling the team they had to fix a rear bouncing issue in the opening practice session.

He also expressed his frustration on the radio after the team elected not to call him into the pits in the safety car window.

Channel 4 F1 pundit David Coulthard has suggested that the 39-year-old may already have checked out as he prepares to join Ferrari in 2025.