Even so, how many terrible starts have the Mercedes drivers had so far? I can only think of Italy and Japan, and the former was caused by overheating whereas the last one was a driver error. It doesn't really look like they have massive issues either.

I'd also challenge the point that Mercedes isn't having the same issues, as I can recall Ricciardo and Verstappen also losing quite a few places on starts, most notably when Max's poor start in Singapore caused Hülkenberg's accident. So it doesn't look like it's a Merc issue alone.