There are fascinating quotes from Nico Rosberg, who has labelled Mercedes GP’s car; the W01 a ‘disaster’.

Rosberg told the Cologne Express:

“The problem with the tyres is well known within the team. For weeks, we have said we would move forward but nothing happened – in fact we’re going backwards. If one is twelfth behind both Williams, who were nowhere weeks ago, what can you expect from there? I went from Williams to Mercedes because I thought I’d have a car capable of winning.”

It has been well documented that the German squad has struggled to make its tyres work properly in qualifying, something that has compromised its race chances, and Ross Brawn has suggested that if an aero upgrade doesn’t do the trick, they could start on their 2011 car early:

“We have not done our job well enough. First we have to bring our new aero package up to scratch. Depending on how the results look, we will then decide if we will focus early on next season.”

This news comes after Mercedes were reportedly considering a 10 per cent cut to its formula one budget. Times look tough at the team we were expecting to be challenging for the title, and maybe getting a headstart for 2011 isn’t such a bad idea after all…