Toto Wolff admits Mercedes are in ‘no man’s land’ and says the season is already over… while Lewis Hamilton will think his move to Ferrari can’t come soon enough.

It’s hope that kills you. Only a few days ago, Lewis Hamilton managed to muster an expression that most vaguely resembled a smile after reckoning his Mercedes felt the best it had felt in three years.

On Sunday, as his failed Merc struggled around Suzuka, that optimism quickly vanished from him. That smile (if it was one), you imagine, was wiped from his face at an even faster rate.

The 39-year-old didn’t get carried away when making this assessment after training on Thursday. Hamilton made it clear he still knows the limits of his car. Let’s not forget that two weeks ago Hamilton said it was a car that “disturbs the mind.”

It’s a project that seems to throw a new challenge around every corner and confuses even the high-tech equipment and army of engineers at their Brackley base. And an old-fashioned, high-octane circuit like this painfully exposes the flaws of a human machine.

That’s exactly what it did to Hamilton, who retained his place in the top 10, finishing ninth, to take his points total for the season into double figures. “I think I took a bit of damage at the start with Charles (Leclerc), he came on the outside,” Hamilton said.

Lewis Hamilton (above) finished ninth at Suzuka as Mercedes’ struggles continue

Hamilton previously thought his Mercedes car was the best it had been in years before the GP started.

“I had huge understeer in the first stint. I couldn’t turn the car through any of the corners. “The hard tire was pretty bad. The medium tire was much better, so yes, in hindsight it seems like we should have had two medium tires. But overall the car was pretty bad.

This assessment will lead to even more sleepless nights for Silver Arrows team principal Toto Wolff. He canceled a pre-arranged break in the relentless journey of this 24-race global extravaganza to be back in the field, alongside his team when needed.

But dark clouds continue to hang over the Mercedes chief’s head after watching Max Verstappen take victory in Japan. “No one is going to catch Max this season, his driving and his car are simply spectacular,” said the Austrian, who saw Hamilton teammate George Russell take advantage of a late error from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to take seventh place.

“Basically, this season is now the best of the others. This is the fight that is underway, I hope that we will catch up with the McLarens and then the Ferraris and that we will fight for P2 (second). This is what is happening this year.

“If your goal is to race for wins and championships, then you can say we are in no man’s land.”

There is, however, no doubt about Verstappen’s position. He’s once again at the top of the tree after a brake failure forced him to retire early and brought a bitter end to his nine-race winning streak in Australia two weeks ago.

For anyone wondering if his failure in Melbourne was anything other than a temporary aberration, here’s your answer, delivered with the Dutchman’s typical emphatic flair. It’s perhaps not as resounding as the victory he achieved at the last Japanese Grand Prix, just over six months ago.

But a 12-second gap between Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez in second was a laugh at those who have spent the last fortnight praying that these reliability problems will reappear here. Instead, it was an unrivaled third double of the season for the Red Bulls, sending, once again, a worrying message to the rest of the grid.

Hamilton called his car’s performance ‘pretty bad’ after the race

Team boss Christian Horner was less willing to agree with Wolff’s assessment that this championship is already done and dusted after just four races. One might suggest he did so while putting on his best poker face.

“I’ve learned not to listen too much to what Toto has said over the years,” Horner joked. “It’s very early to cancel your year, there are still 20 races to go. The ability he (Verstappen) has is very impressive. The form he had last year has been maintained.

“The way he managed to stretch the tires here was very impressive. We saw him in the first stint, in the second he also did a very good job. He has a very wise head on shoulders that are still quite young.

Even a brief and unexpected interlude in the form of a red flag on the opening lap – which came after Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon messed up the tire wall before Turn 3 – failed to lose his stride to the incomparable Verstappen.

The charge from the rest of the field was led by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who fought his way past teammate Leclerc to claim third place, another impressive outing from the Spaniard after the appendix-less driver produced a medical marvel to take victory in Australia two weeks ago.

Although it was another defeat for Leclerc against Sainz, who will lose his seat with the Italian team to Hamilton for next season, it was an encouraging day for the Monegasque driver who made a strong way from eighth place to finish a commendable fourth.

For Hamilton, a weekend that began with so much promise ultimately ended with a painfully familiar ending as Red Bull and Ferrari shared the podium.

Hamilton’s final season at Mercedes will not be planned until he prepares to join Ferrari next year

He must rectify his slowness during qualifying to give himself the best chance of dealing any blow to one or the other of the two Red Bulls. Several teams, including Mercedes, took advantage of the break caused by the red flag to modify their strategies. Hamilton switched to hard tires and moved to one-stop racing.

Soon after, the man who has won at this track five times – most recently in 2018 – asked his team to change that plan as he slid further and further down the field. Hamilton found his hands so tied by his car that he struggled to be sure whether a change in strategy would have made a difference to the outcome of his race.

“Nothing, I don’t think,” said the dejected Englishman when asked what he could have gained with a different strategy. “I don’t know what the different strategy would have been, if it was to stay on the mediums to start with, but we still had two really terrible hard tires to contend with, so a real challenge today.”

For Hamilton, a weekend that began with so much promise ultimately ended with a painfully familiar ending.