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2021 FIA Formula One World Championship
2021 French Grand Prix
Circuit Paul Ricard
Le Castellet, France
Sunday, 20 June
Mercedes Team Principal and CEO Toto Wolff was frustrated by his team's performance in Baku and has urged them to improve.
For the first time since the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix, Mercedes failed to pick up a single point on a Sunday as Valtteri Bottas finished 12th while defending world champion Lewis Hamilton came home in 15th.
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Hamilton was on course to regain his spot atop the Drivers' Championship standings but locked up at the race restart after Max Verstappen had crashed out.
As a result, the Briton continues to trail Verstappen by four points while Mercedes fell 26 points behind Red Bull on the Constructors' Championship standings with Sergio Perez having claimed his first win for the Austrian team in Azerbaijan.
The disappointment in Baku for Mercedes was preceded by a poor day out in Monaco where Hamilton finished seventh and Bottas did not finish.
"It's really painful," Wolff said. "We had one hand on the trophy and Max was not scoring any points.
"It is not only the incident at the end that frustrates, it is overall not meeting our expectations, all of us together - Lewis, the engineers, myself, everyone in the team.
"It's the frustration that dominates. For him, victory was so close and then it was gone. For me, as a leader, we just have to be the best we can be."
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Wolff added: "There's just so much we need to improve that I just want to get on it right now to make sure we are able to compete for this championship. Because we can't continue losing points like we did in Monaco and here. It's just not acceptable, for all of us.
"We have ten days. The championship is very, very open, it's only the beginning. We have to make sure that the frustration passes and that the satisfaction comes."
Mercedes will take confidence from the fact that Hamilton has won both of the last two races held at Circuit Paul Ricard.
French Grand Prix, last five winners:
2019: Lewis Hamilton
2018: Lewis Hamilton
2009-2017 (not held)
2008: Felipe Massa
2007: Kimi Raikkonen
2006: Michael Schumacher
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