George Russell has said that turning off DRS is “part of the job” of a Formula 1 driver, after Jack Doohan’s crash at the Japanese Grand Prix sparked debate about whether an automated system should be introduced.
The Australian crashed heavily at Turn 1 in FP2 at the Suzuka circuit after his Alpine’s Drag Reduction System did not close.
DRS closes automatically when the brake pedal is applied, or if a certain amount of throttle engagement is introduced.
Neither of those occurred in Doohan’s case and he reportedly failed to engage DRS manually after experiments in the simulator suggested Turn 1 could be taken in such a manner.
The consequential crash has opened up discussion about whether automatic DRS closing should be more stringent.
Mercedes driver Russell told select media, including Motorsport Week, that this should not be the case.
“I mean, obviously what happened to Jack was a big shunt and very unfortunate,” he said, “but I think it’s one of those things that you see happen once, and everybody will recognise, and this is probably the only corner of the whole calendar that it’s a problem.
“I think as drivers, you have responsibilities. We’ve got to go flat out down the straight and turn into the corners, and clicking a button to turn the DRS off is part of the job.
“We don’t want it to be automated. We’ve got to leave it down to the drivers. There’s already too many gadgets, assistants.”
Russell’s fellow GPDA Director Carlos Sainz was quite vocal on introducing an automated system in the face of safety risks.
“I felt I was quite vocal yesterday, saying: ‘I am surprised this hasn’t happened more often’, because I’ve had moments where I’ve mispressed the DRS button and it has stayed open – it gives you a massive snap and a massive fright going into a corner like Turn 1 here, Shanghai Turn 1 or Australia Turn 9,” he said.
“We have too many of these corners where it is down to the driver to close it, down to the DRS to do a good job on the re-attaching, and I’m afriad there hasn’t been enough of these crashes in order to prove that maybe we need to work on this area of safety.
“But I hope the crash shows that we need to do something automatically, 50m, 100m before the braking zone so you don’t get a chance for the driver to make a mistake or the DRS to fail if it doesn’t close.
Leclerc believes automated DRS could be an option
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was on the fence regarding DRS, saying that perhaps a revised version of the current system could be considered.
The Moneqasque said: “I feel like if we have [an automated] system like this, I think we can maybe use it and have more DRS,” hinting at the fact that the system could be used on as many straights as possible.
“Like before Turn 1 in Silverstone, I think it’s a good example, and here before 130R there’s a huge straight, and it’s a bit of a shame that we don’t use these kind of straights to do it,” he said.
However, he also considered that leaving DRS activation to the hands of the drivers is a worthy skill challenge.
“But I also feel like it can be up to us,” Leclerc added.
“Like Turn 1 in Silverstone when we had it, I thought it was quite cool because you had to be very brave in Turn 1 to keep the DRS, and there was something to gain out of it. But yeah, I don’t mind anyway.”
READ MORE – Alpine explains cause behind Jack Doohan’s Japan practice shunt
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