F1 Fanatic

Unless I am mistaken, in a race, it only activates if you are in the right part of the track and if you are in the right proximity to a leading car. Will the drivers just mash this button down if they are even close to those parameters and allow the electronics to decide?

Maybe they will have a qualifying steering wheel arrangement with the button at your thumb, and another for the race that activates the button if you just put your hands on the thing and runs it enabled all the time (and allows it to trip the parameters if applicable).

A light will come on indicating the wing is available and if I’m not mistaken usage will be a manual operation as a driver may not wish or need to use it at every opportunity.

I didn’t know about the light. Having to look for a light when you are following another car closely seems like more of a distraction than having to press a button -which is where most of the “distracted drivers” concern seems to have been directed.

Under what circumstances would you not use it if you could? Just curious if you have an example in mind?

Some drivers may prefer to have a buzzer/beep played through the headset instead of a light.

If it is raining or there is a car issue that needs managing (puncture, bodywork damage etc) it may be preferable to leave the wing in it’s default position.

it won’t always be clear to the driver when he’s within 1 second

Have you not read the thread? The drivers will be informed when the conditions have been met by a light turning on in the cockpit.

there will be one overtaking area on each circuit, mostly on start/finish straights. Never in corners.

Hang on though, what the OP is suggesting isn’t wrong at all. The wing only becomes active on a certain part of the circuit (which is a straight), so feasibly every lap each driver could hold down the button on that section just in case they are allowed to use the rear wing. The OP isn’t saying that a driver would hold it down through somewhere like Turn 8 istanbul because it isn’t active during this part of the race track.

In a sport where fractions of a second are what gives you track position, I can see drivers wanting to make the most out of the rear wing speed boost – because the reaction time of a second or so when the light comes on may mean that they don’t carry enough speed to be able to pass.

There will be times when they don’t want to activate it though, but when they do surely the OP has a point, that drivers will simply mash the button until it works

I can see that if a driver thinks he’s within the 1 second, and is approaching the zone, he may preemptively press the button in hopes that it activates. They certainly won’t just drive around holding the button down all the time though, as it won’t have any effect most of the time and they have plenty of other adjustments and tweaks to worry about on the steering wheel. As far as having a special steering wheel that automatically engages it, no team will be doing that. Period. Drivers will need to have full control over whether or not they deploy the DRS, they won’t want it automated.