"The pain train begins": Fans react to Lewis Hamilton and George Russell's double DNF in the F1 Australian GP

F1 fans were left reeling after the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell retired from the Australian Grand Prix and failed to score any points.

The British pair were struggling with the W15 for varying reasons with Russell fighting within the top 10 and Hamilton just hanging on the fringes of points. But the seven-time world champion had to retire from the race owing to engine failure while his teammate threw away a potential P7 finish after crashing on the final lap.

Mercedes F1 took to their social media to express their disappointment with the result. They also provided an update on the status of George Russell after his massive crash and gave the reason behind Hamilton's retirement.

"A tough race for the team 💔 A late accident for George, but thankfully he's okay. Lewis' race ended early with a PU failure", their tweet read.

F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions to Mercedes' results on X, with one fan claiming that the pain begins for all the fans of the German team. They wrote:

"The pain train begins."

Here are some more reactions:

Others claimed that they wanted accountability for Mercedes's continuous failures:

Lewis Hamilton analyzes his engine failure at the Australian GP

Lewis Hamilton stated that he wasn't aware of any engine problems before it went bust which led to him parking his W15 on the track and bringing out the Virtual Safety Car.

Speaking with F1.com, the Brit spoke about the issue and reflected:

“I didn’t feel [the power unit failing], it just went in one go. I didn’t feel it coming. Definitely frustrating because it was so early in the race, it was open to be able to progress forward and on a different strategy to everyone. But these things happen.”

When asked if he had learned anything from the race, Hamilton, who will leave Mercedes at the end of the season, spoke about his confusion with the car and termed the weekend as a 'real struggle'.

“Nothing more than I’ve known before… We didn’t look terrible in the high-speed [corners] but we’re slow in the low-speed this weekend, whereas in the last race we were bad in the high-speed, good in the lower stuff. Yeah – a real struggle this weekend", Lewis Hamilton added.

It was truly a weekend to forget for the Mercedes F1 team, especially for Hamilton, who had termed the FP2 session as 'one of the worst sessions' in his career. George Russell (18 pts) and teammate Hamilton (8 pts) are P8 and P9 in the drivers' standings, respectively.