![](https://speedcafe.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/SI202109030459_news-1200x800.jpg)
Formula 1 will trial a DRS zone around Zandvoort’s banked final corner at this weekend’s Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix.
The change will be tested during the opening practice session of the weekend with a view to improving overtaking opportunities at Tarzan (Turn 1).
Should that test prove successful, the zone could remain in use throughout the weekend.
“The current position is that we are going to have the DRS ahead of the final corner, so early on, to improve the racing in Zandvoort a bit,” Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s single-seater Technical Director, told Viaplay.
“But we are keeping an open mind and we will be asking teams for their feedback. We have asked them already, in simulations, but also after FP1 we will [be] asking teams for their feedback.
“If we feel that there is any, even a remote risk for any safety, then clearly we would have to take action and change it after FP1.”
A year ago, when Formula 1 returned to the heavily modified Zandvoort circuit for the first time since the 1980s, FIA Race Director Michael Masi deemed it unsafe to have a DRS zone around the Arie Luyendyk Bocht.
Changes to the design philosophy of cars since then have seen less reliance on the downforce created by surfaces in the airstream, namely the front and rear wings, with greater emphasis on underfloor aerodynamics.
As a result, the way in which cars produce their grip is significantly different, which should allow cars to round the high-speed right-hander with the DRS flap open.
The move comes after plans for a fourth DRS zone in Australia were scrapped based on the feedback – Speedcafe.com understands of a single driver.
In Melbourne, a new zone was added along the stretch from Turn 8 to the newly renumbered Turn 9.
That would have seen the DRS activated as cars exited the right-hand sweep around the back of Albert Park Lake, before rounding the long left on approach to the chicane.
In Zandvoort, Arie Luyendyk Bocht has a far tighter radius, though is banked at 18 degrees.
When designing the circuit, engineers reasoned the banking would afford drivers the opportunity to open the throttle much earlier.
The effect, it was predicted, would be to essentially lengthen the front straight from 678 metres to more than one kilometre, in turn creating an overtaking opportunity into Tarzan.
Free Practice 1 begins in Zandvoort at 20:30 AEST on Friday.