Red Bull and Mercedes have experienced vastly contrasting fortunes since their epic 2021 title battle, with the former dominating F1’s new era of regulations by sw🌸eeping to back-to-back drivers’ and constructors’ world championships.

Meanwhile, Mercedes have managed just one win since the start of 2022, having 🙈produced a flawed car design concept that was initially carried over into 2023, beforಞe it was abandoned from the Monaco Grand Prix.

The eight-time constru♓💃ctors’ world champions continue to lag behind Red Bull but remain hopeful about reducing the deficit over a crucial winter, in which they are expected make a fundamental design overhaul for 2024.

But 1996 F1 world champion H💦ill doubts whether Mercedes fully understand the current set of ground-effect ba🦄sed aerodynamic regulations.

“My anxiety is this, which is that for a long time, Mercedes' dominance real𓃲ly was down to their power unit. They had the best power unit for a very long time," Hill told the Sky S🌺ports F1 Podcast.

"And the aerodynamics were always slightly different to Red Bull's. And if you remember towards the en🗹d of the previous Formula 1 regulations, they persisted with their relatively flat looking rake on the car, whereas Red Bull were absolutely huge.

"They led the way and everyone started following Red Bull with this very high rake. It looked like a rat running along the car. It had a༒ very high back.

"But Mercedes stuck persistently or doggedly with their with their other… they looked like they wereꩲ running a different aero concept on their𝔍 car in the previous regulations, and then along come a new set of regulations…

"What I'm saying is, is the Mercedes aero department missing a trick here? And they've lost quite a few good aero people to other teams as well, ov🅺er time."

Fellow Sky pundit Naomi Sc☂hiff also expressed doubts about Mercedes, pointing to the fact they have recently been outperformed by customer teams McLaren and Aston Martin.

"You've got to a✅sk how has a team like McLaren, who from at least the power unit perspective is a customer team of Mercedes, how have they so dramatically been able to turn it around?” Schiff said.

“How weﷺre Aston at the beginning of the season, so dramatically able to turn it around and why is a team like Mercedes still struggling?

"Obviously, they didn't bite the bullet at the beginning of the year or during the winter period last year to completely change their concept, and I think there are some major regrets about that because they coജuld be much further forward today.

"But when you're essentially working on a mechanical base that is faulty and you're just tryi💝ng to make the best of a situation, 𝐆it's not going to be great.

"At the end of the day, they're a team who's won multiple world championships. They know how to build 𝄹a car. I have some faith that they will be able over this winter to turn their situation around. But then again, as I say, Red Bull is so far up the road and they're doing the same thing over the winter period.

"So it's al♔ways going to be a que💫stion mark to see where they end up next year."