Lotus and Sauber had different conclusions after testing their passive DRS devices during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Sauber’s head of track engineering Tom McCullough admitted they were “tempted” to keep their version of the device on the car:
“Today we performed a lot of tests on some new parts and the system performed actually better than we were expecting,” he said.
“It’s still not at the stage we think we’re going to race it even though we are pretty tempted at the moment so there’s plenty of engineers looking at a lot of data and we’ll make that decision later on tomorrow.”
However Lotus technical director Nick Chester said they were unlikely to race their Drag Reduction Device this weekend, despite having run it previously this year and targeted using it at Spa.
“We didn’t have a full dry session we couldn’t get the normal feedback we would like on it and all the measurements we would like,” he said. “So it just left us a little nervous after P1 that we didn’t want to go into the rest of the weekend with something that may give us a problem.”
“Particularly when the car’s already pretty competitive and we don’t want to risk having a problem in P3 or qualifying with it.”
2013 Belgian Grand Prix
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Image © Lotus/LAT
TedTonks
23rd August 2013, 17:57
No wonder they have no money, when they’re spending it on device, which they’ll never use.
Dave (@)
23rd August 2013, 21:43
All teams make parts that don’t get raced. Lotus aren’t special in that respect.
BasCB (@bascb)
23rd August 2013, 22:44
To be honest, the device probably cost less so far than another iteration of the front wing (and they bring new ones more or less each race now)
Patrick (@paeschli)
23rd August 2013, 19:01
Sauber is so much of the pace this season, they should take a risk and use it IMO
Beto (@chebeto0)
23rd August 2013, 21:55
Agreed. They are already not scoring (almost) any points. They don’t hace that much to lose.
BasCB (@bascb)
23rd August 2013, 22:45
Yeah, I think they should take a bit of a gamble, its not as if they would lose a lot if it did not pay off.
Mike (@mike)
24th August 2013, 3:43
@paeschli
Problem with spa is corners like Eau Rouge, Pouhon and Blanchimont where because of the high speeds it might activate accidentally. I just hope they are careful with it because I think it’s quite possibly very dangerous if they get it wrong.
Patrick (@paeschli)
24th August 2013, 18:32
Anybody knows if they tried it or not? :)
Chris (@tophercheese21)
24th August 2013, 2:41
This whole drag reduction device just seems like too much bother for too little reward.
Eggry (@eggry)
24th August 2013, 4:51
What a useless device.
Nickpkr21
24th August 2013, 9:16
Well Mercedes has it !