Mercedes reveals the “secret code” tactic behind Kimi Antonelli’s Madrid-winning VSC call
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has explained how the team prepares its drivers for situations like the one that decided the Spanish Grand Prix – including the use of secret codes that may have helped Kimi Antonelli make his Formula 1 race-winning pitstop.
After being alerted to the yellow flags for Lance Stroll‘s stopped Aston Martin, Antonelli backed off significantly through Turns 18 to 20, losing more time than the cars around him, including race leader Lando Norris and Max Verstappen directly behind.
Antonelli not only reduced his speed in the yellow-flag zone, but also delayed getting back on the throttle in the following section, where green flags were already displayed. After the race, the Italian said his race engineer Peter Bonnington had warned him that a VSC might be deployed, prompting him to slow deliberately in an attempt to catch the neutralisation before reaching the pit entry.
Speaking on the NU Silver Arrows Radio Show podcast, Shovlin revealed that Mercedes uses secret codes to prepare its drivers for potential safety car situations.
“Well, we will use secret codes to give them an idea of whether they might want to come in on a safety car during the race. But we try not to let all the other teams know what those codes are. So, we change them every single week,” Shovlin explained.
Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images
“We had the yellow flag, Bono confirms. Kimi actually backed off a bit and bought himself another second, which was probably… He might have got in without it. It certainly made it possible.
“And if you watch the onboard from Kimi’s car, you’ll see that Kimi getting in was not an easy thing. And you’ll see that as he was pulling up in the pit box, the tyres were arriving as he was stopping. So, it was a difficult stop to execute in that time frame.”
It is unclear which of Bonnington’s messages to Antonelli contained the coded instruction, as there were only a handful of exchanges between Stroll stopping and the Mercedes driver entering the pits.
Bonnington first warned Antonelli: “Yellow, yellow, 19-20,” before adding: “So, a big lift.” He then told him: “You are in safety car window.”
Moments later, with the VSC deployed, came the instruction to pit.
Antonelli was extremely close to the pit entry when race control deployed the virtual safety car. While he might still have managed to dive into the pits at the last moment, the extra second gained by slowing down gave both the driver and pitwall more time to react.
It is standard practice for teams to meet with drivers on Sunday morning to review race strategy and map out potential scenarios, including crashes, safety cars and VSCs. But when margins are so small, teams also need a clear process and chain of command to execute those plans quickly.
It is not simply a matter of calling the driver in. The mechanics also need to be ready with the tyres – particularly in this case, as Mercedes chose to double-stack Antonelli and George Russell.
There were 35 seconds between the initial yellow flag and the VSC deployment, while just 15 seconds elapsed from the VSC being called to Antonelli reaching his pit box. Mercedes had both sets of tyres ready for Antonelli and Russell, demonstrating how quickly the team had reacted to the developing situation.
Kimi Antonelli, Peter Bonnington
Photo by: Reginald Mathalone / NurPhoto via Getty Images
“We were focused on Sunday morning on making sure that we were ready to react to any incident, and what you do there is make sure that every single stage of the race you know what you’re doing if there’s a VSC, safety car. And that’s normal. All teams will operate like that,” Shovlin added.
“But even though there’s a plan, you can still get occasions where a bit of a discussion starts. It’s like, oh, do we really want to do that? And what was nice to see here is there was a plan. Kimi knew he was in the window for a VSC. Bono confirmed it as soon as there was an incident.”
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