Mercedes Have Shared Information Of Their ‘Dummy’ On Ferrari

It appears that the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix wasn’t any easy for Mercedes, who bagged yet again a 1-2 finish. In their win ahead of the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel, what stood out for the Silver Arrows was the ‘clutch calibration’ as depicted by the two Mercedes drivers- Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton.

In a race of strategy and interesting team decisions, Mercedes pulled out an ace, yet again, and it appears that a big credit for their triumph at Baku came at the behest of James Vowles, their team’s chief strategist.

Here’s what panned out well for the Toto Wolff-led outfit.

Right at the start of the Grand Prix, the two Mercedes drivers weren’t really at the front of the grid. So was there a move behind this, too?

Yes, according to James Vowles.

The true purpose of the Mercedes drivers not ending up at the front of the grid initially at Baku was part of their dummy move to take Ferrari by surprise. Elaborating more on that, James Vowles shared the following: “Over the last few races you’ve been seeing what we would call almost a Mexican standoff in the pit lane.”

The thing that he made an arresting development about was the conditioning of the other cars on the grid. He would go on to elaborate, “Everyone has their engines fired up and everyone’s looking at each other. But who’s going to go first to go out on the track? They will be the car that effectively leads others and creates the tow.”

So according to their chief strategist, at Baku, Mercedes basically planned to send their drivers a bit earlier than others, a part of a move that would have pulled an entire chain of cars behind “us” (Mercedes).

What was evident was that the move really worked in their favor. It also came to impact them positively, that their drivers practised a start on the left-hand side of the grid simply so they didn’t have to end up at the front of the queue. While the move was, without a doubt, risky, it worked in the favour of Mercedes.