Mercedes trick telemetry: the burst of energy makes the difference when exiting the last chicane

The Mercedes energy boost Since yesterday we have been telling you on the pages about the Mercedes trick in using the electric part of the power unit at Silverstone, confirmed by poleman Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the press conference.
The two Mercedes drivers are asked to lift their foot from the accelerator as they approach the finish line, an unnatural move, but which allows them to fully exploit the 350 kW of energy right up to the end without having to scale it down by 50 kW per second. A strange action but compliant with the regulations, because it was generated by “a negative request” from the pilot, as established by the technical regulations in force. Did the Mercedes trick make a difference? Mercedes also used this trick in qualifying at Silverstone, which gave it a real boost of extra energy coming out of the last chicane. There was a difference of 11 km/h between Antonelli and Leclerc, which gave an undoubted gain in timing to the Italian, who took pole position with 0″175 over his Monegasque rival. This aspect can be seen clearly from the telemetry of our Federico Albano, who commented on the graph as follows: “Once we reach the Vale chicane, Leclerc attacks the corner entry a lot and is very effective in braking, so much so as to cancel out for a moment the gap accumulated up to that moment, but the exit is penalized at that point and already from halfway through the chicane Antonelli begins to quickly reopen the gap. During the acceleration phase towards the finish line, Antonelli’s best line adds up to a clear surplus of power, giving the Italian even had an 11 km/h speed advantage before lifting his foot a moment before the finish line, bringing the gap back to the almost two tenths that it was before the chicane”. The images of the ghost car What has been described so far can be clearly seen from the images released by Formula 1, which superimposed the trajectories of the best qualifying lap of Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc. We have isolated a couple of frames and make the video available to you (the comparison should not be considered perfect to the thousandth, but indicative), where you can clearly see how the Italian’s Mercedes ‘escapes’ exiting the chicane with an extra push, slowing down noticeably near the finish line.

Automobile Magazine – Formula1 English, News

2026-07-05 08:26:00