F1: Lotus Postpones ‘Device’ Debut

Formula 1

F1: Lotus Postpones ‘Device’ Debut

Lotus will not use its new Double DRS the rest of the weekend at Spa...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted August 31, 2012 Francorchamps (BEL)

Lotus technical director James Allison says the team will hold off on running its new Double DRS for now. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Lotus has decided to postpone the debut of its Double DRS – also jokingly known as ‘the Device’ – until the next race at Monza.

Although it was tried again in FP1 Friday, after being used by Kimi Raikkonen on Friday in Hungary and Germany, it was decided that the team did not gain enough experience with it, and there was too much risk in committing to use it Saturday. Neither driver ran at all in FP2 Friday.

“The forecast for the next two days is for dry and warmer weather,” said technical director James Allison. “So running today was not very useful in terms of preparing for qualifying or the race. Today’s rain also prevented us from seeing how the ‘Device’ would perform in the expected race conditions.

“With discretion being the better part of valor, 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, and we’re happy to end the day with no damage from running in these difficult conditions.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.