General
Has Mercedes put up another smoke screen? '50 hp in reserve'
- GPblog.com
Like every year during the winter test, it's just a question of how much the teams are showing each other. Are they full throttle? Are they running with a lot of fuel or not? Are they pulling the wool over the eyes of the competition? Mercedes is known for it, and this year they would have fooled the rest as well.
It didn't seem like a flawless test for Mercedes for ages which gives the competition hope. Especially now that Red Bull had no problems. Max Verstappen already indicated that Mercedes is still the favourite and now the Italian branch of Motorsport.com has done an analysis on it. According to the medium, the Germans keep 50bhp in reserve.
Mercedes sandbagging or real problems?
The W12 didn't seem to do what it was supposed to do, Toto Wolff also admitted but they wouldn't panic because they weren't driving with full power. To not give unnecessary information to the competition they drove with 50 bhp less. Moreover, according to the Italian media, they would not have reached their top speed because of overheating.
The question remains what Red Bull has left in the bag and the problems with Mercedes' gearbox were real. Furthermore, the balance of the car didn't seem ideal especially when you compared it to Verstappen's team. In ten days time, we'll really know.