Zak Brown has revealed that McLaren use fake radio messages to get an upper hand on their opponents during on-track battles.
Offering a peek into McLaren’s tactics, Brown said: “We’re doing real questions, we’re doing fake questions because all of the teams are allowed to listen to each other. It’s kind of like a third base coach at a baseball game is doing all these signs, but you know when he touches his hat, the next sign counts. But until he touches his hat… so we do that verbally.
“So if we say to Oscar, ‘Oscar, how are your tyres?’ That is a real question. Anything we say after tyres, if we say anything, it’s a bogus question. ‘Oscar, how are your tires doing?’
“And what we’re trying to do is we then want him to give us a fake answer back. So all our competitors, who are trying to figure out when we might make a pit stop, are thrown off. So, you know, ‘Oscar, how are your tires doing?’ Bogus question. We want him to go, ‘I don’t think I can last much longer.’
“And then the other teams go, ‘Oh, McLaren might be getting ready for a pit stop,’ and they start building their strategy around what we’re doing.”