The Miami city track, home of the Miami Grand Prix, the fifth round of the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship, will offer 3 DRS zones, but in the last few hours these have been significantly modified.
2 of these, in fact, have been shortened, or taken a few tens of meters further on. The first DRS trigger point on the straight into Turn 11 has been moved from 30 meters after Turn 9 to 105 meters after the turn, thus reducing the DRS zone by 75 metres.
The second DRS zone located on the back straight of the track has also been shortened by 75 metres: now the device can be activated 525 meters after turn 16 instead of 450 metres.
The last 3 o’clock DRS zone was not touched, probably because it already had a negligible effect on overtaking last year.
Since the beginning of the season, F1 had made it known that in the first 5 races the DRS zones would be subject to changes, i.e. shortened or made longer than planned in the pre-season.
A few hours before the start of the first free practice session, doubts arose over the decision to shorten two of Miami’s three DRS zones, also due to what was seen last weekend in Baku, home of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The race without many points of interest that took place last weekend caused several discontent even among the riders. Lewis Hamilton said: “This year they shortened the DRS on the straight, but I’m not sure why they did it. We’ve always had great races where the DRS was. When we switched to DRS in Baku it was too late. I’m not there been a lot of overtaking”.
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