Toto Wolff has revealed the mood inside Mercedes is "up and down" and that the current triple-header is proving to be rough" on the team as it fights on track and battles to repair its cars off it.
In the space of seven days, George Russell has twice crashed heavily, initially in qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, and again in second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Sandwiched in between was Lewis Hamilton's surprise early spin out of the race in Austin which has previously proven to be such a happy hunting ground for him.
Given all three incidents have come in the opening few days of an exhausting triple-header, it has placed pressure on the team members, in particular, those travelling.
"The worst part is for the men and women in the garage," said Wolff, in explaining the intensity of the back-to-back-to-back races when things are going wrong to Sky Sports F1.
"Three in a row, two big shunts last weekend, a massive one yesterday, and the chassis needs to be repaired for Brazil. It's rough."
Mercedes broke curfew overnight, using the second of its two 'jokers' for the season to change the chassis on Russell's car after his heavy 35g impact side on into a Tecpro barrier.
Assessing the mood in the camp, Wolff said: "We've had a few big shunts over the last few races, but the mechanics have done an incredible job overnight. The chassis was damaged. We can repair it but it's not going to run here [in Mexico City].
"The mood is up and down. We're quickest in some of the sessions, and then suddenly you're half a second down, like now, so it's difficult to read."
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Hamilton 'in a good spot'
Hamilton finished FP3 half a second adrift of McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris who were split by just 0.059s.
When informed of the gap to Piastri, Hamilton expressed surprise as he felt he had extracted a good lap with his W15.
The car has proven problematic since F1 returned from the summer break. Beforehand, the team had won three of four races, two of which were on merit via Hamilton in Britain and Belgium.
Outlining the current problems with the W15, Wolff remarked: "The car has a very narrow band where it functions well so when you hit that lap, or that session, we're quick.
"And you've seen when it's been cold, like pre-summer at a high-speed track like Silverstone and Spa, we were the quickest.
"Cold temperatures are good for us, high speed is good for us; the low speed we don't like, hot in traction is not great.
"So when you hit it right we can be very quick on a single lap, and on a long run we're probably third or fourth."
As to why the 'band of opportunity' widened when it is cooler, Wolff said: "We're just able to generate more grip because the tyre is in a happier place, and then the overheating of the tyres makes everything exponentially worse."
Wolff reported that Hamilton said "the car is good" after final practice, but as to where that will translate in qualifying, he said: "I think it plays between P1, P2, P3 and P7. That's the margin we are operating in at the moment.
"He [Hamilton] was in a good spot. He said the lap was good. We need to tweak a few details, and let's see where everybody qualifies on the same fuel, and same engine modes."
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