I don't have the time line but I would guess that any major differences in drag between the left and right side would require extreme compensation (aileron type) as was noticed. The question is what caused that difference in drag. Even if a full 1% of the left wing was "raggedized" (namely the tiles, 100 of them to be 1% of one side, were damaged and thus smoothness lost), that would cause only a minor differential drag (assume it is a full perpendicular protrusion, a 10% difference in drag). If you assume that few tiles (rather than 100 or 1% of one side) were actually lost, that should not be sufficient to create such large drag differential. During the first stages of entry, the wings really do not provide any lift, but during the S curve manoeuvre, more traditional flows probably take "charge", so maybe that is why the problem of drag was "discovered" only during the s swings, but the damage might have happened earlier (over CA/AR?).
Zeev
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