Mercedes’ strategy at Suzuka came under scrutiny but they have been🎐 re🌞minded that they must face even bigger problems.

Mercedes’ decis♔ion to equip Lewis Hamilton and George Russell with hard tyres at the restart after a red flag at the F1 Japanese Grand Prix failed🏅 to yield results.

Hamilton finished ninth, R🌃ussell seventh, behind a Red Bull 1-2 and both Ferraris among others.

Red Bull and Ferrari opted for a different straꦉtegy to Mercedes.

Hamilton questioned the strategy via team radio ⛄during the race before later insisting his team coul꧂dn’t have done anything differently.

But Mark Webber has reminded them that tyre strategy is the least of theirꦍ concerns.

“They rolled the dice,” Webbe🍨r said to Channel 4 after the Japanese Grand Prix.

“They restarted on the hards. They🏅 w๊ere looking at making a one-stop work.

“Failed. Too optimistic.

“Then, track༺ position. They had to come back 💖through.

“Then both of them put the mediums on, at the end. So they converted to ꦛa [two-stop] there.

“They t🍃ried, and they went all-in ༺with both cars too, off the line with that hard tyre.

“They haven’t got the speed at th🅷e🧔 moment. They just haven’t got the speed.

“You can do whatever strategy you want. But if you hav൲en’t got a quick🎐 car? Good luck.”

The W15 gave Hamilton a rare good feeling at the start of the weekend in Jap♑an yet Mercedes are still no closer to significantly cha♊llenging the Red Bulls.

Hamilton insi🍒sted he wouldn’t have fought gaine🅺d anything with an alternate tyre strategy.

“Nothing, I don’t think,” he sa✃id. “I don’t know what the different strategy would have been.

“Whether it was the mediums to start with? But we still had two terrible hard tyres to run through. It was a real chall𒅌enge.”

Red Bull’s Christian Horner insisted that tyre strategy was not crucial in Japan🧔.

“I don’t think there was much in it,” he said.

“The track was warmer today, that brough💦t the cars into a different operating window.

“The circuit just gets faster and faster throughouꩵt the race.”