Pre-season testing is always seen as the trailer for the following season. Teams bring out their new and improved cars to try out and get data. Mercedes F1 has been the dominant team for the last six years. Lewis Hamilton won five of the last six titles and Nico Rosberg won the title in 2016. Over the years, it is a well-known fact that the Mercedes F1 team does not bring their A-game to the testing. Fans have coined a term for the silver-arrows which is “sandbagging”. Many believe that Mercedes do this deliberately every year.
But to the surprise of everyone Mercedes F1 Engineers have said that there would be two to three prominent innovations in 2020 car. It is also being said that the innovations would be like never seen before. It is still unknown whether the team would start with just a test car and bring the 2020 aero package only in the second week.
Pre-Season test for Mercedes F1 in 2019
The pre-season tests which happened in 2019 also showed the same patterns. On the first day of the first test, Mercedes F1 looked quite ordinary. Valterri Bottas stood in the 8th position. Lewis Hamiton stood in the 9th position with a gap of 1.974 seconds from the leader Sebastian Vettel. The same was seen on day 2 as well. Lewis Hamilton secured 10th position on the chart which seemed rather unusual for the then five-time world champion Briton.
The most unexpected thing happened on Day 3 of the 1st test when both of the Mercedes cars were standing in the 11th and 12th positions. Mercedes F1 has the potential which is known to all the teams on the grid. The team was on another level on the last day of the 2nd test. Lewis Hamilton clocked a lap in just 1:16.224 which was 0.003 seconds slower than the leader Sebastian Vettel.
It is still unknown whether Mercedes F1 simply tries to deceive its competitors by driving slow or they are slower than most of the teams in the early testings. It will be amazing to see the team’s claims of innovation when the pre-season testing kicks off.
