Zak Brown reveals McLaren’s secret radio games: “Anything we say after...”

McLaren CEO Zak Brown has revealed how fake radio calls work in Formula 1, giving a - likely fake - example of what they do with Oscar Piastri.

Anyone who watches F1 has likely heard a suspicious-sounding radio call.  A dummy pit call, for example, or drivers offering their thoughts on degrading rubber, saying one thing but meaning the exact opposite. Teams have been known to use these fake radio calls to throw off their rivals, tempting them to change their race strategy.

Aired recently, McLaren attempted a dummy call with Red Bull, but team chief Christian Horner and his strategists seemingly picked up on the red herring before they made any changes to their race plans. As expected, the Woking squad didn't follow through.

“It was clear that McLaren had chosen to pit Norris first as we approached the pit stops, but before that, they played a trick with Lando that made no sense to us because he would have come out in traffic. So, we stuck to our plan and didn’t react to the manoeuvre," Horner explained to Sky Sports F1.

During an interview with Bloomberg (embedded below), Brown discussed the reasoning behind these fake radio calls and gave an example of how to identify if what you hear during a race is deceptive or not.

"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," Brown commented.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Thompson - Getty Images

"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."