Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes is still learning its new Dual Axis Steering (DAS) system as to where it can be advantageous for the team in 2020 F1 season.
The very moment that Lewis Hamilton used DAS for the first time in week one of testing at Barcelona, the F1 fraternity certainly took notice. However, one thing which was not so instantaneous was understanding both where it provides an advantage and how it works.
Mercedes themselves explained how DAS worked but, naturally, it did not list the specifics of the advantages it provided. Still, many hypothesised some pros that variable toe could bring, pointing out that tyre heating could be helped, as could straight-line speed.
And, when talking about DAS, Bottas stated that Mercedes themselves are still learning where it is most advantageous, as they begin to understand the system more. Additionally, the legality of the system can only be ascertained when used in Australia.
“When we first introduced it and did the initial running, definitely run by run we were learning more about it, and with the test, the engineers have more time to learn from the data and more of the guidelines for us as the drivers, how to best use it etc, what kind of situations it can bring the advantage, how big an advantage it will give us, and which tracks is a bit of a question mark,” said Bottas to media including FormulaRapida.net.
“We’re happy to have it on the car, and now it all goes pretty smoothly and starts to feel like everything goes pretty automatically without too much thinking about it, and we’re using it what we think is the best. I think with all the simulation tools and all the data, for sure we can find ways that we think in theory can be the best, but also it will be driver dependent, especially at the race weekend, in terms of situations where we think we might get a benefit.
“In the end, we’re the only ones who can use it, and we have some guidelines but it’s up to us to also explore and discover and find the best ways to use it. It’s a nice little extra tool, not that there were so many extra things to do anyway on the steering wheel.”
Focusing more on the driver element of learning when to use and deploy DAS, Bottas also indicated that the he’ll be making attempts to master the newfangled system so as to gain the maximum advantage, especially over Mercedes teammate Hamilton.
“You need to be the king of every tool in the car and extract everything out of the car, including the new systems, so for sure we’re both, me and Lewis, trying to extract the maximum out of it, and for sure for myself, I try to do something better if I can, but we’re sharing all the information, all the knowledge, all the data, so eventually for sure we hope we’ll be able to extract everything out of it,” said Bottas.
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The story was edited by Darshan Chokhani