F1 | Australian GP | Overtakes and DRS zones are “all about balance,” says Magnussen ahead of renewed Albert Park debut
Kevin Magnussen’s thoughts on the four DRS zones that will be awaiting cars for the first time tomorrow in Melbourne and what he expects to be a “quite loose” Turn 9.
Formula 1 is back in Melbourne this weekend after a forced two-year absence because of the pandemic and a brand new layout awaits the single-seaters for tomorrow’s first free practice session.
Corners have been resurfaced and reprofiled in order to promote overtakes and closer fights in a circuit that is expected to be 5 seconds a lap quicker than the original one.
The most significant changes, however, are the removal of the chicane at Turn 9 and 10 which now features a flat out straight and the addition of a fourth DRS zone.
Changes that don’t entirely convince Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, as he explained this morning in a session with media including MotorLat.
"When I saw the layout on this track I thought that maybe some of it was over the top,” he said.
"Removing what was Turns 9 and 10, I don't think they needed to do that. But they have made a big effort to make the show better and I think that’s a great thing for the track to try to do their best to improve racing is a great thing. Let's see how it goes in the race."
We are yet to discover whether the track changes will actually improve racing in Melbourne, but Magnussen believes this additional DRS zone could make things a bit trickier for drivers.
“Into Turn 9 I don’t think you are gonna overtake, you may do but I’m not sure. The bend before Turn 9 is going to be pretty full-on with DRS on. I think the cars are going to be quite loose there. But we’ll see.”
Fresh tarmac, new layout 👀
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 7, 2022
Looking good, Albert Park 👌#AusGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/S06rXhg4YE
"There are different opinions of what's good racing," he continued. "Too-easy overtaking can be bad as well. It puts everyone in the right position in terms of pace.”
It is all a matter of finding the right balance around overtakes.
“Some tracks have the right balance to still have some racing, but also some opportunity to defend. If you can't defend, if you get overtaken if you are just a little bit slower, that's also not a good thing."
A balance that Formula 1 will have to find over time by collecting data race by race, track by track and using it to improve for the up-coming seasons.
“Maybe this year F1 needs to collect some data on how overtaking is on different tracks with these new cars and then they can do some adjustments for the following seasons: shortening or lengthening the DRS zones or removing some zones.”
However, it appears rather obvious at this point that compared to the previous seasons overtakes are more frequent this year, due to the nature of the ground-effect cars that just made a comeback.
“I think it will be a little better. Also, with the cars in Jeddah we saw more overtakes than we did last year in the race. So the cars are definitely better at following and overtaking. Even if they didn’t change the track, I think you’d see more overtaking.”
