The race for the highest honours, both in the drivers’ as well as constructors’ championships, are taking exciting twists and turns after each race weekend this season

The Canadian Grand Prix witnessed the domination of Ferrari throughout as Sebastian Vettel secured pole on Saturday and never looked like under serious threat from his peers as he registered his third win of the season on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Mercedes duo Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton could only manage second and fifth, resulting in the latter losing grip of the championship to race winner Vettel, who now leads by a solitary point at 121 after the conclusion of round seven.

It was the first time since 2014, the UK-based outfit have not tasted victory in Canada and the Mercedes chief has a word of advice for the entire team in general.

Toto Wolff believes the weekend at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve must serve as a major wake-up call for the team as their rivals are mounting a serious title tilt.

The 46-year-old said: “I think this, and we've had it in the past, is a major wake-up call for every single member of the team," per Sky Sports.

“Everybody needs to assess how to improve performance in order to optimise on those marginal gains because those marginal gains are going to make all the difference.”

Mercedes arrived in Canada without their planned engine upgrade, encountering several late reliability issues this week and fell behind as they played catch up to Ferrari and Red Bull.

Despite Montreal being a stronghold in the hybrid era for the champions, the Austrian boss admitted the Scuderia car was far stronger compared to Mercedes and the result speaks for itself.

“There is not really a pattern you can see. Normally on some tracks we were dominant and others we struggled, but somehow this year the margins have become so tight that if you look at the fastest laps of the race it's five cars within a tenth,” continued Wolff.

“This is why this year's championship is going to be decided by the one who makes the fewest mistakes, brings the best development onto the power unit of the engine on every single weekend.

“That is the new reality. It's a three-way fight, six cars can win races and you can't take anything for granted. You can't come to Montreal and think it's going to be a walk in the park because that's the kind of wake-up call you get.”

He accepted the fact that the team landed in Canada with specific expectations but have fallen significantly short and must address the problems if they want to gain the upper hand against their counterparts for the remainder of the campaign.

Wolff added: “We were coming to Montreal expecting our car to be really strong and we are leaving Montreal seeing that we haven't been where we thought we should be.

“There is not the usual historic pattern of cars being strong on certain circuits and weak on others. I still think we are not pretty good in Monaco and Singapore, but that's maybe the odd outlier. You need to expect everyone to be strong everywhere.”