Is Mercedes trying to outsmart the starting lights?

It's not surprising that Mercedes has been the top team for the past seven years. Every time the team knows how to come up with something new in order to be the boss of the competition. The last trick was the DAS system. Now it seems as if Mercedes is also anticipating the start lights for an even faster start.

It's another very clever trick if it turns out to be true, but according to former F1-driver Robert Doornbos Mercedes might be trying to anticipate the start lights. This might enable the team to bypass the two-tenths human reaction speed.

In Crashen in de Keuken, Doornbos discusses the bad start of Bottas who was allowed to start from P2 but ruined his start. After an extensive analysis, Doornbos is able to tell the following. He starts: "Your start is measured by different sensors. Switching off the lights is your starting shot. However, there's a margin of two tenths."

Bottas wasn't looking at the lights

"If you make a false start, it has to be more than two tenths or it won't be noticed and doesn't count as a false start. Now it looks like Mercedes is trying something and they are looking if they can anticipate that", Doornbos further explains.

The slow-motion images show three red lights on the Finn's steering wheel. All three are on when the start lights above the grid are at four. The images show that Valtteri Bottas isn't looking at the big lights, but at his steering wheel. As soon as the lights on his steering wheel go out the Mercedes makes a run for it.

The problem of Bottas was that he saw above him just in time that the lights were still on. He had to get off the gas to avoid a false start. But if Doornbos is right Mercedes was very close to a good anticipation, because a millisecond later the lights indeed went out.