The last lap of Austin GP 2021

Max Verstappen was the winner of the race. But i noticed within the last two laps when the blue flag was raised, Mick conceded to both Max and Hamilton at the last turn. Max was ahead of Lewis just under a second onto the start finish straight. The straight itself was occupied by DRS zone. Having lapped Mick Schumacher by the previous turn and lost valuable tenths to Lewis, within the DRS straight on start finish, Max opened his rear wing flap where Lewis who was within DRS range of Verstappen, strangely didn't activate the system. Allowing Verstappen to break one tenths clear before the second DRS straight.

Since there was no lapped car ahead of Max on DRS straight, was Max's DRS deployment legal?

Ok, first things first: you will have to be within 1 second from the car in front of you at the DRS detection zone in order for the driver to be able to activate DRS. This means that even if the car is less than 1 second from the lead car at the DRS activation zone, if it wasn’t within 1 second at the DRS detection zone, it won’t have DRS.



Ok, onto the point: Mick let Max by after turn 19, but the DRS detection zone was before that, meaning Max has indeed gotten DRS from Mick (you can get DRS from lapped cars). However, when Lewis crossed the DRS detection zone, according to the timing leaderboard, he was 1.084 seconds behind Max, meaning he couldn’t get DRS from Max.

So yea, Max’s DRS deployment was legal, but I’ve never seen anyone who’ve used DRS when they shouldn’t have

Yes, it caused a lot of confusion and it was a great opportunity for all the toxic Hamilton fans to accuse Max of cheating, yet most of even Lewis fans knew the difference between DRS detection and activation point. But it really is so damn confusing🥲

Even though i like Max, but i was confused. Perhaps within the visuals of our eyes, i was so sure that Lewis was within range of Max. Generally, i wondered why Lewis didn't turn his wing flap, activating DRS because i believed he was in the range...