Esteban Ocon, Force India, Silverstone, 2018

Turn one won’t be easily flat-out with DRS – Ocon

2018 British Grand Prix

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The new DRS zone which has been added at Silverstone for this weekend’s British Grand Prix will make turn one a challenging corner, says Esteban Ocon.

The Force India driver has tested driving the corner in the simulator and predicted it won’t be possible to follow another car closely with DRS open through Abbey.

“It’s not easy,” he said. “We will see how it is in real [life]. I think it’s going to be a challenge in the race.

“For sure I don’t think anyone will go their DRS open and close to another car. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But it’s going to bring a bit of spice.”

The new DRS zone runs from the exit of the final corner, Club, and drivers may keep DRS open until they brake for turn three, Village. Ocon’s team mate Sergio Perez expects the new DRS zone will affect teams in different ways.

“It will be interesting to see tomorrow because that can have an impact on some teams in qualifying that do not have the amount of downforce as other teams. They might be having to lift and you lose DRS.

“It will be interesting to see how it is tomorrow.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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9 comments on “Turn one won’t be easily flat-out with DRS – Ocon”

  1. They might be having to lift and you lose DRS

    I thought that you only lose DRS when you brake; not when merely lifting.

    Anyway, we are moving in the right direction: allow DRS to be used everywhere and for everyone.

    1. @coldfly ”I thought that you only lose DRS when you brake; not when merely lifting.”
      – That indeed is the case. DRS gets ‘automatically’ de-activated only by applying the brakes. The other way to de-activate is, of course, to press the activation button/switch on the steering wheel.

      1. @jerejj
        That’s my state of knowledge as well (i.e. drivers can only deactivate DRS by braking or pushing the DRS button). But I keep reading that lifting off the throttle has the same effect, and the fact that Ocon says something in a similar vein makes it harder to dismiss it as a mere rumour spread by easily influenced F1 fans.
        It sound intuitively wrong, though. Lifting off the throttle while trying to pass another car on the straight is certainly not unheard of. Think of all the times Verstappen Verstappened drivers who wanted to DRS past him. Did they lose DRS because they had to lift? That sounds like a double punishment.

        1. @nase @jerejj sounds logical as it’s the first time an open DRS will be used in a corner. And as I understand it from Ocon once it’s closed it cannot be reopened.

          1. @spoutnik Actually, no, this won’t be the first time that DRS will/can be used through a corner. It was the norm during the first two seasons (2011 and ’12) of the existence of the system when the usage of DRS was more or less entirely unrestricted (except for Monaco’s tunnel, and Spa’s Eau Rouge and the straight leading onto it) in practice and qualifying sessions that it would be activated through certain corners such as Suzuka’s 130R and Spa’s Blanchimont (not all of the teams did manage that, though, but at least some did), which are similar to Abbey.

          2. @jerejj Ho I don’t remember that! Thanks for the info!

        2. The game/simulator “iRacing” has a McLaren MP4-30 model and it does close the DRS when you lift the throttle (<80% input, I believe). I don't know if the game developers made up this system to close DRS when the throttle is lifted or it was an information they got from McLaren to create the model.

    2. If everyone can use it everywhere then it is completly neutralised, may as well just ditch it in that case.

  2. Great so the top teams with more downforce gain more laptime advantage…. derp F1……much derp.

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