| By Edd Straw | Saturday, June 29th 2013, 17:22 GMT |
Lotus's passive drag reduction system will make its race debut in tomorrow's British Grand Prix on Kimi Raikkonen's car.
The team has been trying to make the system work since first trialling it in practice for last year's German GP.
But despite being confident in its potential at the launch of this year's car, this is the first time it has run on a race weekend in 2013.
Raikkonen used the system - reckoned to have the potential to increase top speed to allow more wing to be run for the corners without compromising pace on the straights - during qualifying, meaning it must run tomorrow.
British Grand Prix technical blog
The Finn, who was ninth fastest in qualifying, admitted that he had hoped for more from the design, but that there was nothing to be lost by running it.
"We hoped for a bit more from it but let's see how it behaves tomorrow and hopefully it helps us with the race pace.
"You always want more from new parts, but I guess we are where we are right now and hopefully we can go forward.
"If we never try things, we will never learn anything and we will never start using it.
"I don't really see that we have much to lose because without trying something new and finding a chunk of time we will not catch the guys in front of us."
Silverstone is an obvious choice for trialling the passive DRS because of the number of high-speed straights.
The design uses a fluid switch to redirect airflow to stall the rear wing once the car hits a specific speed.
But the team has struggled to consistently get the switch to de-activate when the car decelerates, leading to the potential problem that a car could lack rear downforce when a driver first hits the brakes for a corner.
Talking to AUTOSPORT at the launch of the Lotus E21, then-technical director James Allison, explained that it was easier to make the design work at certain track configurations.
"It all depends on how good we are engineering it," said Allison of how often the device could be used.
"It's possible to imagine it being useful at every circuit. If we do a less good job than that, then it will only be at certain circuits, like Spa, where even a relatively crudely placed switch can bludgeon its way to a decent gain."
Paul di Resta has been excluded from qualifying at the British Grand Prix after his Force India was found to be under the minimum weight limit.
The British Grand Prix grid changed post-qualifying for all bar the Mercedes and Red Bulls, as Paul di Resta's exclusion from the results dropped his Force India from fifth to the back.
Formula 1's attention moves to the FIA's headquarters in Paris on Thursday for an International Tribunal (IT) hearing into the Mercedes secret test controversy.
Rules not details key to Paris hearing
The FIA in its only public statement so far suggested that such approval was conditional on the Pirelli test opportunity being available to other teams.
The IT's punishments are limited to fines, bans or the alternative sanctions laid out in the International Sporting Code (ISC).
Valtteri Bottas says his third place on the Canadian Grand Prix grid changed the atmosphere in the struggling Williams team.
Adrian Sutil says Force India's strength in looking after its tyres shows there is nothing wrong with the job that Pirelli is doing.
"There is nothing more to say. It's not allowed to have a new compound and there is no danger with the tyres.
Lotus owner Genii Capital has sold a 35 per cent stake in the team to new investor Infinity Racing.
Jenson Button has faith that he and McLaren can still give home fans something to cheer about in the British Grand Prix, despite recent struggles.
"I remember going on stage back in 2008 when we were really poor [with Honda], and still I received massive support, which was really nice and that really helped me for the rest of the season.
