F1 veteran Jean Alesi doesn't believe reigning world champions Mercedes will battle for race wins in the second part of the 2022 season.
At the outset this year, Mercedes' performances were weighed down by the chronic porpoising issues impacting its W13 silver arrow.
However, the Brackley squad's engineers have progressively managed to get a grip on their new-generation contender and mitigate the car's bouncing problem.
The progress has been followed by an improvement of Mercedes' results, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell scoring consecutive podiums in France and in Hungary.
In light of his team's improvements over the summer, Hamilton suggested that a win on merit could be on the horizon for Mercedes in the back half of the season.
But Alesi believes that ship has sailed for the German outfit, and the Frenchman explained why.
"By experience, when a car is born with problems, you’re not able to fix it," the former Ferrari charger told Give Me Sport.
"You can make a compromise, but a compromise in Formula 1 doesn’t work, you know.
"I don’t really believe they are able to be a winning team, winning Grands Prix, before the end of the championship under normal circumstances."
Alesi admits he was 'shocked' by Mercedes' early season struggles and by the fact that the team had been the most hard hit by F1's porpoising phenomenon.
But the former Grand Prix driver was equally impressed with the team's ability to improve.
"It’s easy for me to say, but everybody was shocked," he said.
"When they presented the car in Bahrain, everybody said, ‘oh my God, they have made something very special and they’re going to be untouchable’.
"But lap after lap, they found out the car was nowhere. To see Lewis driving a car like that was sometimes embarrassing, because Lewis is a seven-time World Champion.
"But to see his capacity to still improve the car, that was impressive. In Hungary, it was fantastic to see George on pole position and Lewis fighting towards the front."
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