Mercedes F1 chief reveals 'secret codes' team changes every week

Mercedes

Mercedes chief reveals 'secret codes' team changes every week

F1 racing, or spying?

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Saturday 19 September 2026 17:28

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Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has lifted the lid on the 'secret codes' the team use over the radio with their drivers.

The use of code words on team radio isn't exactly a fresh one – some NASCAR drivers even use words related to their sponsors, with 'nuggets', 'cheeseburger', 'Filet-O-Fish' all being used for different purposes by one McDonald's-sponsored car – but the insight is rarely discussed by F1 team personnel.

Speaking on the Nu Silver Arrows show this week, Shovlin discussed the Spanish Grand Prix's key moment – Kimi Antonelli being able to dive into the pits under a VSC while Lando Norris missed out – and how the codes may have helped.

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The long-time Mercedes chief said that Antonelli 'knew he was in the window' for a virtual safety car as soon as Lance Stroll went off the track, an incident which resulted in a VSC being deployed with Antonelli just meters from pit entry.

He also confirmed that Antonelli had actually slowed down in anticipation of the VSC being called, in order to make sure that he would be able to dive into the pits and not sail by just as Norris did ahead of him.

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Shovlin explained: "We were focused on Sunday morning on making sure we were able to react to any incident, and what you do there is make sure that at every single stage of the race, you know what you're doing of there's a VSC, or safety car.

"That's normal, all teams will operate like that, but even though there's a plan you can still get occasions where a bit of a discussion starts, like 'ooh, do we really want to do that?'

"What was nice to see here was that there was a plan, Kimi knew he was in the window for a VSC, Bono confirmed it as soon as there was an incident."

Shovlin: We change the codes every week

Asked when Antonelli knew he was in the window for a VSC, Shovlin continued: "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 other teams know what those codes are so we change them every single week.

"So we had the red flag, Bono confirms, Kimi actually backed off a bit and bought himself another second which...he might've got in without it, it certainly made it possible.

"If you watch the onboard from Kimi's car you'll see that him getting in was not an easy thing, and 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."