McLaren believes Indian GP's lack of excitement a one-off
The Indian Grand Prix's dearth of excitement was a one-off due to a misjudged DRS zone, reckons McLaren technical director Paddy Lowe
Last weekend's Buddh race was one of the least exciting rounds of what has been a largely entertaining 2012 Formula 1 season.
While Red Bull's domination and the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres has been blamed, Lowe believes if the DRS zone had been positioned differently, fans would still have seen plenty of overtaking.
The FIA extended the Buddh DRS zone for this season. The race included 26 overtaking manoeuvres in total, but also cars trapped in traffic for some time.
McLaren's Jenson Button spent part of the middle of the race unable to overtake Romain Grosjean's Lotus, which was on a different strategy, while Grosjean's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was held up by Felipe Massa's slower Ferrari for most of the afternoon.
"Generally it has been quite an exciting season but I suppose in terms of overtaking the DRS seemed particularly ineffective there," said Lowe in a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes teleconference.
"Several people were stuck behind slower cars for a long time. Kimi was probably the most extreme example.
"When you saw Lewis [Hamilton] at the end trying to overtake [Mark] Webber, it seemed to be you could close up but then through the corner sequence you'd lose out again, so you never got quite close enough again.
"There's something about that particular track's DRS that we need to investigate. We've seen a lot of circuits where it worked very well. I think it's specific to that circuit."
While Lowe believes that there is no fundamental reason why F1's current package of DRS, KERS and Pirelli's compounds cannot generate action later in the season, he warned that this weekend's Abu Dhabi GP might also be relatively tame.
"Let's see how this event goes," he cautioned. "Abu Dhabi has been one of the more difficult circuits [for overtaking] even with DRS.
"If [a lack of overtaking] happens again, it doesn't discount my theory, as I'd say this circuit is also quite difficult for DRS."
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