Mercedes is expecting to see a repeat of the slipstreaming antics during Q3 at Spa in Monza this weekend.
Last Saturday saw a bizarre situation of drivers stacking up behind Nico Hulkenberg in an effort to gain an advantage on the run to Les Combes, with Lewis Hamilton almost ended up pathetically hitting Valtteri Bottas on the out lap as a result.
With the extra top speed even more beneficial at the Italian Grand Prix, Mercedes engineering chief Andrew Shovlin believes similar tactics will be used.
“Looking ahead to Monza, it’s going to be a similar situation,” he predicted in the Pure Pitwall YouTube post.
“Very high-speed track, long straights and everyone is going to be trying to get a tow off everyone else.
“So what you will probably see in qualifying towards the end is people are staying in the garage, they are waiting for the clock to run down.
“No one wants to go out first but eventually you’ve got to go, you’ve got to get that out-lap in and you’ll see people move.”
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Given Mercedes are expecting a significant disadvantage on the straights at the ‘Temple of Speed’, Shovlin admits they will be hoping for some inadvertent help.
“Now, what would be good is Ferrari, they are very fast in a straight line, if they would go out first, we can get behind them and get the benefit of that tow,” he stated.
“But the issue is your tyres are cold [due to the slow lap following],” he noted. “That was a problem for us [in Belgium], we lost a bit of time at the first corner just because the tyres weren’t in the right window.”