F1 Drivers Express Strange Concern Ahead of Austrian GP

The Red Bull Ring, which will host the Austrian Grand Prix this Sunday confirmed earlier that they had added a third DRS zone on the short stretch of track. This has led to some drivers questioning the F1 decision-makers.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was unsure if adding extra zones was the way going forward. “I’m a bit puzzled on this. We’ve had in the past, a race that is boring and ‘F1 is a disaster’. We have had races where it’s exciting and people say ‘F1 is great and healthy’.”

“But I don’t know if it’s a solution to put DRS zones, I mean don’t get me wrong there’s maybe a lot of people that like the idea of Mario Kart including myself, I played it when I was young, but I think it [race] will get artificial”, he said, drawing a hilarious juxtaposition.

The Red Bull Ring is the third track to get a new DRS zone this year, the other two being Australia’s Albert Park and the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada.

Vettel’s teammate, Kimi Raikkonen said that half the track was a DRS zone and so he felt that overtaking should become very easy. Vettel was not so sure of how easy it would be.

“I don’t know if it’s too easy or not. Obviously we want overtaking but there must be a point where it’s kind-of artificial overtaking. But let’s see”, said the German.

Haas’ Kevin Magnussen also felt the same way. “It wasn’t the worst circuit for overtaking already.”

“So I think the longest straight on the track, which is already a pretty long straight, with DRS is probably going to be fairly easy to overtake here”, said the former McLaren and Renault driver.

But Force India’s Sergio Perez was sure of it not making much difference. “It is going to be hard to overtake. Hopefully the third DRS will help us a bit but I expect it to be quite hard”, he said.