Wolff: We haven't performed at level we did before summer shutdown

Wolff's statement came after Hamilton and teammate George Russell finished fifth and seventh respectively in Sunday's Italian Grand Prix.

What hurt Mercedes more is that they showed showed strong pace in practice, only for Hamilton to qualify sixth, and while Russell did manage to qualify third, a clumsy first lap saw him drop down the order with a broken front wing, playing catch up throughout the race.

Wolff reflected on his team's Italian GP, he said: "Our own race was better than Zandvoort but still not good. We completed the two-stop strategy as we suffered from graining on the front left tyre, which made the one-stop unlikely.

"It was a difficult challenge to manage and hard to know whether to commit to the one-stop or push harder and go to the two-stop. Our pace today made it difficult to score much more than we did on either path though.

"We have not performed at the level we did before the summer shutdown in the last two races," the Austrian lamented. "When you don't have the pace, it makes strategy decisions difficult as we saw today.

"We have some time to analyze why that is now before Baku and aim to come back stronger," he concluded.

Hamilton added: "We didn't have the pace today to fight for more. The McLarens and the Ferrari in particularly were strong. I managed to keep up with Sainz but couldn't do the longer stint and the one-stop that he was able to.

"If we had started ahead of him, we might have been able to hold him off. Ultimately though, we needed a better balance with the car today to achieve much more.

"It's a shame to come away from a weekend where we were looking so strong without more to show for it," the seven-time Formula 1 Champion said. "We looked good throughout practice and qualifying but couldn't quite match that today.

"The field is so tight now and it will be fascinating to see what happens over the coming races. We will keep working hard and hopefully have a stronger race in Baku in two weeks' time," he concluded.

As for Russell, he vented: "It was a frustrating day today. Ultimately, we didn't have the pace to fight for the podium, but my race came undone at the first corner.

"It is disappointing when that happens after all the efforts the team put in over the weekend. I made a good start but got caught in the dirty air behind Piastri.

"I locked up to avoid him and picked up some front-wing damage," he explained. "That compromised my opening stint, and we lost time in the pit stop having to change the wing itself.

"Our pace hasn't been as strong as it was prior to the summer break, either here or in Zandvoort. As a team, we will go away, put the effort in, and find out why that is.

"Other teams seem to have taken a step forward so we will need to work diligently to get back onto terms with them," Russell concluded.