Lotus have confirmed they won’t race their double-DRS system this weekend despite successfully testing it on Kimi Raikkonen’s car during practice.
The Enstone outfit has been developing the system for many months now following the clarification that the Mercedes system, which works in a similar fashion, doesn’t in fact violate the regulations.
Lotus operations director Alan Permane confirmed the system would be removed from Raikkonen’s car for the remainder of this weekend, but it would be back on the E20 at the next race.
“Both cars ran with aero updates, which were rather more visible on one car than the other,” he said referring to the Finn’s car.
How does the Lotus DRS work?
Whilst similar to Mercedes system, Lotus’s DRS more closely resembles the F-duct’s from 2010. Air passes through the roll-hoop side ducts and stalls the DRS when activated to increase straight-line speed or exits under the rear-wing when DRS is closed.
“We’ve seen encouraging signs from our latest prototype concept [the double-DRS] and although we won’t race it here, it’s likely to make another appearance during practice in Budapest.”
Team principal Eric Boullier doesn’t want to rush the development which could potentially cost them points if it doesn’t operate as planned.
“We are still looking at the data now but the issue is when you build a prototype, you don’t want to have an issue [in a race] because we can’t make any reliability tests,” he told Autosport.
“We don’t want an issue during the race. If we have strong form and can finish both cars in the points, we want to be safe. We need to validate it before we keep it on the car.”
