Mercedes deliberately slowed itself at Spa to experiment for Monza

Mercedes deliberately slowed itself at Spa to do an experiment for the race at Monza, reported six to seven-tenths a lap down.

Mercedes once again dominated Spa, and their hegemony in Formula 1 doesn’t seem to stop in the near future. And now, it has been revealed that Mercedes deliberately slowed itself down during Belgian Grand Prix.

As per the Mercedes’ officials, it was a move to experiment ahead of Monza, as a new Technical Directctive comes into effect in Formula 1, the new directive will discontinue the usage of engine mode or aka as ‘Party Mode’.

“Only when Verstappen caught up to one and a half seconds on Valtteri on the 25th lap did we tell our guys [Hamilton and Bottas] that they could forget about tyre management for a few laps and get a little bit of a head start,” Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin  is quoted by Auto Motor und Sport.

“If you take more today, you will harm yourself tomorrow. We already had the races from Monza in mind and wanted to bring the engines as fresh as possible into the new era. Every hot lap would have cost us more later.”

The data states that if Mercedes had used the party mode at Spa, the gap between Verstappen and other two cars would have been even greater for the pole position.

Mercedes stronger without Party mode?

Despite Hamilton’s disagreement over revocation of party mode in the initial days. Mercedes have openly claimed that the ban might help their cause further, with a better life to engines.

Also read: Renault F1: Conspiracy theory circulating of Mercedes helping out Renault in exchange of them dropping Racing Point charges

As of now, it is not sure whether it will slow them down or not, but it is pretty clear that all the teams are losing the same leverage and despite Mercedes slowing itself down, the deficit is still observable.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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