Having already thrown the towel in on their title ambitions, Mercedes went from bad to worse at the Imola Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton could only finish 13th and faced the humiliation of being lapped by fierce rival and race winner Max Verstappen.
George Russell finished in the points but off the podium as an impressive drive from the young Brit saw him cross the line in fourth.
But it was a sobering afternoon for Hamilton whose dreams of a record eighth world crown seem further away than ever.
And his mood was echoed by Mercedes chief Toto Wolff, who could only apologise to the biggest name in F1 over the radio at the culmination of the race.
"Lewis, hi," he began. "Sorry for what you have needed to drive today. I know this is undriveable and not what we deserved to score as a result. So we move from there, but this was a terrible race."
Hamilton responded: "Yeah, no worries, Toto. Let's keep working hard."
Wolff then assured his driver: "Yeah, we will. We will come out of this."
The result leaves Hamilton seventh in the driver standings, a massive 58 points behind leader Charles Leclerc. Russell sits fourth, 37 points adrift of the pace-setting Ferrari.
Verstappen's win moves him to within 17 points of Leclerc as he bids for back-to-back world titles.
In the constructors' standings, Ferrari have 124 points, with Red Bull nine points further back and Mercedes on only 77.
After the race, Wolff told Sky Sports: "George really drove well considering the car that he had. A really good drive.
"For Lewis, really bad. We got squeezed by the Alpjne and there is just no overtaking when you're in a DRS train. We are not good enough for a world champion and we just need to fix the car.
"I think we are going to look at things for Miami, the understanding of the car. We just really need to understand more and creep up."
