[PapaofGags]

A clip of Lewis Hamilton qualifying at the 2018 Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix went viral in March.

It appeared to show Mercedes using their 'new' Dual-Axis Steering [DAS] system, but was this DAS in action or an optical illusion caused by rain on the camera? Mercedes have now hinted it could have been the former.

In the first of a new series unveiled by Mercedes team on Wednesday, entitled 'Deep Dive', chief designer John Owen revealed that DAS had been in development for several years.

More interestingly he admitted the innovation had been used during a race at some point in 2018.

“Innovation, there are almost no new ideas, there are only old ideas, but there are different collections of ideas that make a new concept of something different,”something different,” said Owen.

“And so the DAS system was born out of the ashes of something else, something that we tried, something we’d actually raced on the car a couple of years ago, that sort of worked but didn’t really deliver all the promise that we had in it.

“So that was sort of put to one side as something we tried and didn’t perhaps live up to our expectations.”