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Is the duct permanently open, but only becomes effective when DRS is employed? Or does the button that engages DRS also open the duct?
If the former, then the duct is purely passive, and I'd think it legal. If the latter options, then that's definitely dodgy.
This is how I understand it to be. totally passive.
It's been declared legal. The other teams just have to dry up and get on with it.
I think Scarbs is correct in how he thinks it works. But ultimately I think it's legal as its a secondary effect to DRS activation.
We just have to wait and see what is ultimately decided, anything else at this stage is purely speculation.
One thing though, if it IS eventually declared illegal, it should only affect them from the next race and shouldn't affect them for Australia. The device has been declared legal as things stand and would, in my opinion, be entirely unfair to then DQ or punish Mercedes in any way whatsoever as they are racing on the basis that they have been given official advice to the effect that it is legal. The precedent for this is the McLaren double braking system from 1998 where this is exactly what happened.
If it's declared illegal today that puts Mercedes in a very difficult and somewhat unfair position as they obviously physically cannot alter the design of the car between today and tomorrow.
Totally different if it had been declared illegal but then the team been allowed to race under protest, which isn't the case.
Will wait and see with interest.
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