Mercedes respond to sandbagging claims from 2019 pre-season testing

It might be hard to imagine now that the 2019 season is over, but at the start of the year during pre-season testing in Barcelona, it was genuinely thought Ferrari would be favourites to the title.

Of course, this wasn't the case once the F1-circus got to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix as Mercedes set off on a historic streak of five straight one-two finishes.

Were the Silver Arrows sandbagging in Spain during pre-season to give everyone else false hope or did they find something in the weeks between then and the opening race that made them that much quicker?

"In the first week, our presentation car was used, which we had already approved in October 2018 - that was the plan from the start," technical director James Allison said about pre-season when talking to Auto Motor und Sport.

This led to a very slow variation of the W10 being fielded at the Circuit de Catalunya. Ferrari dominated the timesheets and quickly became the bookies' favourite to win the 2019 title.

Little did they know, Mercedes were just playing their cards close to the chest. However, Allison does admit his side struggled to get maximum performance out of the car up until the very last day of testing.

"We wanted to incorporate as much aerodynamic development as possible into this car so it was finished late," the Brit continued.

Mercedes went on to win 15 of the 21 races in 2019 as they clinched their sixth straight double championships