James Allison says rain prevented them to evaluate their double DRS device – Formula 1 news
James Allison, technical chief of Lotus, told that the team will not be running its double DRS device at the Belgian Grand Prix as they have been unable to test the device, during Friday free practice sessions because of the wet conditions at Spa.
He said that the weather forecast for the next two days at Spa is dry and warmer weather, therefore practicing for the race at the wet circuit was not useful.
Allison said, “The forecast for the next two days is for dry and warmer weather so running today was not very useful in terms of preparing for qualifying or the race.”
Furthermore, he said that the rain has prevented them from evaluating the performance of their double DRS device, because it was useless to test the device in wet conditions when the race and the qualifying session are expected to be dry.
“Today's rain also prevented us from seeing how the 'Device' would perform in the expected race conditions,” he added.
Additionally, he said that they will not try to test their new developments during the free practice session 3 and would prefer to go with conventional aero package, because FP3 is precious for them. He added that they are pleased that the cars are working
fine and they were able to end the FP1 and FP2 without any damage to their cars.
The technical chief said, “With discretion being the better part of valour we will conduct P3 tomorrow with a conventional aero package rather than attempting to squeeze Friday's intended evaluation into the precious final practice session. On the plus side
we learned today that the cars are working fine.”
Lotus drivers, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean did not test their cars during the FP2 session at Spa. In FP1 Raikkonen was able to complete his fastest lap in 2 minutes and 46.580 seconds whereas, his teammate, Grosjean registered his fastest lap of the
session in 2 minutes and 38.701 seconds.
Lotus is currently at the third position in the Constructors’ championship with 192 points. The Belgian GP is of vital importance as their gap from the second position, attained by McLaren, is only 1 point, as they are currently runner up by attaining 193
points in the championship.
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