TACTICS
Taking the hard way
TEAM TACTICS
Mercedes was closer than it has been all season in Zandvoort, helped on by a slick strategy on the unloved hard-compound tyres. Mark Hughes explains what Red Bull might have missed
Mercedes made the hard Pirellis work better than Red
Bull in the Netherlands
It’s relatively easy to have great strategy with the fastest car. But when scratching for pace, somewhere close but not quite there, sometimes circumstances can favour you, allowing you to give the faster guy a fright. Mercedes was in such a situation at Zandvoort.
The W13 is a tricky car but Mercedes at least now broadly understands it. Its limitations are baked-in but it has strengths. On a highdownforce track where the cars can be run with a low ride height, it is pretty quick. Add that to its usual kindness on the rubber and it was somewhere close in Zandvoort, closer than it’s been all season. When Mercedes saw that this, combined with a bit of ambiguity in what the ideal strategy was set to be – one-stop or two, medium tyres or hard – it got quite excited. There was a potential window here to steal a win against the run of play, to maybe, just maybe, be in contention for a victory.