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That is a serious question

I can well imagine that having one hand off the wheel could make him do a driving mistake. Why do other teams not copy McLaren with a leg-activated F-duct?

Someone said modern F1 is "safe" because the driver walks out from that kind of crash with no injuries, but it would be much safer if the driver would always have control of their race car!!!

I don't think so.

The explanation I heard was that the Lotus, clearly inferior to the Red Bull, has to brake much earlier. Webber wasn't expecting that (or, indeed, for Kovalainen to try and keep his position) so when the Lotus braked there was no time for Webber to do anything but crash into and over the back of him.

That's a good question Jido,

I beleive the McLaren car has been designed with the F-duct as an integral part and their chassis was approved by the FIA with that system in place. The other teams cannot just open holes in their chassis and hence the hand activated solution.

Reference: Peter Sauber says F-duct not copied from McLaren

Well, they used to take their hand off the wheel to change gears, surely moving a hand to de-activate the F Duct shouldn't be too much of a preoccupation ?

That is not allowed Julian, a F-duct activated by a switch would be a moving aerodynamic part. The idea of the F-duct is the driver is the aerodynamic part (imagine raising your hand makes you faster, that is the same).

To activate the F-duct a Red Bull/Ferrari etc driver needs to keep his hand on the hole the whole time

Sorry, Jido, I did mean activating and de-activating by blocking with the hand.