George Russell says Mercedes has called meetings ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix to understand the issues that have seen its performances plummet at recent races.
Since winning the Canadian Grand Prix three races ago, Russell has not finished higher than fifth in a grand prix as both he and teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli have struggled with the handling of their cars.
At Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, Russell finished in fifth place, 35 seconds adrift of race winner Oscar Piastri and just five seconds ahead of the Williams of Alex Albon in sixth.
Even in the cooler conditions at Spa-Francorchamps last weekend, which have tended to suit Mercedes' traits, the car was still a step behind its competition.
"We need to really understand what is going on and why we've taken such a step backwards because these conditions today, you would argue, are ideal for us and our car -- and once again, it's been the worst performance of the season," Russell said after finishing fifth at Spa.
"So, yeah, we're going to have a big sit-down this week and try and figure it out.
"Definitely the car isn't feeling as nice to drive at the moment as it once did. Lacking rear stability, whereas at the start of the year it was much better. I think Kimi and I are collectively making more mistakes because the car is more challenging to drive.
"So, yeah, we need to sit down as a team. As I say, it may be as simple as reverting back some of the changes we've made. But, in Formula 1, it's never that simple."
Russell suspects the tightening of regulations around the flexing of front wings via a technical directive (TD) at the Spanish Grand Prix hampered Mercedes more than its rivals.
The stricter tests on flexing bodywork forced all teams to redesign their front wings for Spain and reduced the possibility of using a flexing front wing to help balance the car between high-speed and low-speed corners.
"Obviously, we had the change of the front wing in Barcelona," Russell said. "We then went in a slightly different direction afterwards to sort of tackle the issue of the change of front wing. And clearly, since that point, we've taken a big step backwards.
"So, it could be as simple as just reverting back to something that we had earlier in the season. Of course, you can't do that with the front wing, but in terms of the rest of the setup... but I don't know, it seems quite strange how we've gone so far backwards."
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Mercedes' head of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin, believes the issues are more complex than just the front wing change in Spain, not least because the car was the class of the field at the following round in Canada.
"That's what we need to understand," Shovlin said. "What we had early on in the year was a car that was working well at pretty much every circuit. We were generally fighting for the second row of the grid, if not the front row.
"It's probably true for anyone that the [Spain] TD won't improve stability, but this wing was on the car in Montreal and it was fine. The fact is other people are able to balance their cars a bit better.
"There's no doubt a solution in there for us, but as I said, we're just looking at all the steps that we've taken with the car design over the last number of races. It isn't just the front wing that's changed, and I'm sure there's more that we can learn.
"That's what the focus is on over the next few races is trying to pinpoint why we're getting this entry stability issue.
"Well, I'd say there's another point. Yes, that TD on the front wing might take you in the wrong direction, but the fact is when we've dropped aero balance out of the car, the instability is still there."
Asked if changes could be made ahead of this weekend's race in Hungary, Shovlin added: "Well, it depends what extent you're talking about, but it's definitely possible for us to look at changing aspects of the car for Budapest. How deep we go will depend on what parts we've got around us.
"And, as I said, there's quite a lot that we've changed, so we've got a meeting with the drivers to go through some of what we've done over the year to try and make sure that our efforts are focused on the right things, not just changing things for the sake of it."