Lewis Hamilton hopes the new DAS device can “make a huge difference” for Mercedes this season.
The Dual-Axis Steering system was the talk of the paddock during the first week of testing when the world champion was seen using it for the first time.
That hype faded somewhat in the second week with some teams doubting it will offer a huge advantage for the Brackley-based and even Hamilton himself was a little unsure how to assess it.
“Hopefully it’ll make a huge difference,” he said via Crash.net.
“At the moment I don’t really use it a lot to be honest. Sometimes you practice with it, sometimes without it. I don’t know how much we’ll be using it.”
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Indeed, the general reaction seems to be Mercedes created the DAS, which alters the toe of the front tyres by the driver pulling the steering wheel towards them on the straight, simply because they could.
“Yeah. I’m just generally really proud of the guys. Honestly, I think our whole mentality continues to progress and improve,” Hamilton said of his reaction.
“Over the years we become more and more open-minded. Engineers are often quite closed-minded and stick to doing the same things they’ve done in the past because it’s safe and it’s the reliable way because it’s worked before.
“But over the last couple of years, I’ve really been pushing the guys into areas of where they are not so comfortable and we’ve discovered things we would never have if we hadn’t done that.
“It was really awesome to break them a bit and open them up to new ideas and that’s what also has enabled us to do things like this.
“I think it’s really inspiring to see them continuing to innovate ahead of everybody else. That’s a good thing for us.”
As for whether DAS will on the W11 in Australia, Valtteri Bottas, who praised the system last week, simply said: “No reason why not.”