Because these are different locations, the drones can’t appear differently to different players, i.e., everyone sees the secret drone as such.
In MudnBeer’s screenshot, you can also see _d0bermann _, who appears to be collecting the secret drone. d0bermann’s guide shows the Closed Circle hubcap as unlocked. Given how rare the drone is, we can assume they both collected it at the same time, which means that it doesn’t disappear after one player collects it, and it’s also visible to more than one player (hence, e.g., having the highest score isn’t required to see it).
Although I once saw a player going south through the passage in the center of C8 leaving a trail of ‘drone stars’ behind, as if they’d just collected a drone. Those stars disappear too quickly for that to have been the drone at B7. And I didn’t see any drone at C8, and, IIRC, not at B7 as well. So maybe the secret drone was there, but I wasn’t able to get it. Perhaps it can be collected by several players at the same time, but it soon disappears? Or it’s sometimes invisible altogether?
There’s also some ‘blue flash’ phenomenon that I once saw on the road in D9, but that was probably from a player loading in. A few horizontal parallel light blue streaks in the air, so not from an EMP perk flash.
More leaked info: 2 to 3 drones per battle, 8% chance of the secret drone appearing. The source for this data is the same as the previous 6 or more leaks I’ve posted on the forum in the last 6+ months, all of which were later confirmed in official Crossout news posts. But in this case, the value of 8% is obviously wrong. Reportedly, one Russian player found the secret drone after nearly 1000 attempts, each taking around 1 minute. So this must be a bug, which we can’t expect to be fixed. So you’ll either have to forget about the hubcap, or keep going for hundreds of attempts, and still possibly for nothing.
What I do is check the 8 belt and the remaining four locations, and out in around a minute. As for the stupids shooting at me - at least I know who’s definitely not getting the hubcap.
This isn’t the first time Targem has shown negligent treatment of players with respect to event rewards:
- In October 2021, Operation Ashen Ring was ended 3 days 18 hours early, with no prior notice. I was busy editing and uploading videos to my YT channel about Crossout, and the reward I got for all the effort was missing out on event rewards, just because I relied on official information.
- IIRC on 2022.01.03, the Secret Santa event was ended a whole 14 days early. Some may have been crafting or buying higher-tier items to improve their performance in the event raid, and it would have thus been for nothing.
It looks like the developers messed up badly with the secret drone and they don’t care to fix the issue. A new player can get the hubcap on the first attempt, as soon as they can access the brawl, and someone who’s been playing for years may not get it at all. Note that a level in this event costs 10 points to unlock, and you can only get the fixed amount of 25 a day. It looks like there was a more complex method for earning these points, but it was abandoned in favor of a simpler one.
If this is how much Targem respects the players, maybe you’d want to reciprocate, e.g., by throwing a D1M (a dice with 1 million sides) the next time you’ll be considering spending money on the game. They deserve a fair chance. 
You can also report the bug here, by clicking “I have same issue!” at the top.
Gaijin.net // Issues
Thanks @Bmo_o for providing the link in another post. 
