Magnussen expects “better racing” with more powerful DRS

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In the round-up: Kevin Magnussen reckons a strong DRS effect will be good for F1 in 2017.

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Keith Collantine
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61 comments on “Magnussen expects “better racing” with more powerful DRS”

  1. What a depressing headline…

    1. +1. Needing to fake it up so that the kids with ADD don’t get bored with a great battle which rages on for 30 laps.

      1. Wait, I thought the whole point oh f1 under Bernie was that f1 doesn’t need younger viewers yet it’s the kids fault we have drs?

        1. +1 DRS was nothing to with kids. Just a desperate attempt at sticking a plaster over the open wound of racing difficulties in an aero formula

  2. On another note, this looks rather catchy:

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128081/formula-e-new-201819-concept-unveiled

    Its not quite open wheel in the traditional sense, looks more like a P1. Looks great though.

    1. Not sure which P1 you mean, but I do like it. A lot. :)

      1. The Ford “GT” the blue oval successfully entered in and subsequently dominated LeMans24 last year after repeated rule changes in their favor and egregious BoP sandbagging -type of P1, yes, yes it does look like one of those

        1. @uneedafinn2win, according to Daily Sportscar, Ford’s team principle allegedly also tried to blackmail Risi Competizioni by telling Giuseppe Risi that, if he didn’t order his car to back off and gift the win to Ford in the closing laps of the race, they would pressure the stewards to have his car disqualified from the race. As evidenced by the fact that Ford did then complain to the stewards and did get the Risi Competizioni car penalised, you can guess what Giuseppe Risi thought of their attempt to rig the finishing order of the race.

    2. Wow awesome, stunning concept. Far more interesting than the current chassis.

      1. By definition that is not an openwheel race car though…

        It’s basically an aerodynamic singleseat cabrio in which you will be passed by a Suzuki Swift on the open highways ;-)

      2. Looks good, but I wouldn’t want to be replacing that front wing when it invariably gets damaged (time and $$$).

    3. Looks good. I must say, I admire the people managing the series. Changes they have introduced to the sport for the past 3 years have been quite meaningful.
      Now compare that to F1 which doesn’t seem to know whether it is going forward or backwards.
      While FE are moving forward with single and now newer cars per race per driver (no more car switching), F1 chasing its own tail, is going back to implement an already tried and abandoned car design changes hoping that it may work this time around.
      Interesting times.

    4. @jaymenon10, the thing is, Spark Racing Technologies have also confirmed that those pictures are just an artists impression of what the SRT-05 might look like, and that the final design will almost certainly look different.

      Effectively, this is more akin to the conceptual renders produced by McLaren (the MP4-X) or the Red Bull X2010 – it’s intended to look good in a screenshot and to generate hype around the series, which it currently seems to be doing quite successfully, but the current indication from SRT is that it won’t go into production.

  3. Unlike many, I have no problem with DRS. In fact I like the idea of driving a car with DRS. However what I do not like, is the zones that are put in place, and the 1 second gap rule. This to me is contrived.

    I would be happy with numerous straights with DRS zones, or even no zones at all ( Safety concerns abound, but they have no zones in testing, and everyone gets round ok ). However, the 1 second gap, is silly, and manufactured.

    Originally DRS was brought in to counteract the loss of downforce a driver gets following a car when they are behind them. So it was a mitigating action rather than an additive action. Trying to resolve an issue, rather than make the cars go faster. In this way, it’s a bit of a hack.

    However the challenge of using everything you have at your disposal to get around a track, and around your opponents fascinates me. To that end, DRS could make it more interesting in my mind. After all, it now exists on road cars, so why should a road car be more evolved than a race car?

    My vote is just to allow DRS whenever and where ever the driver likes. Cat.. firmly amongst the pigeons.

    1. @hare I disagree, that would just be a safety concern. There is a reason they got rid of free-to-use DRS in qualifying and practice.

      1. Maybe. Maybe the size of the DRS is reduced. But going fast is also a safety concern. These guys are pilots. Give them the tools to do a job.

        1. @hare The thing with making DRS free to use is that teams will keep trying to develop the system and make it more and more effective, and drivers will be forced to keep it open through fast corners, and as quick as possible off corner. There is a reason it was disbanded, and that was because drivers complained that it became too much, with people trying to keep it open through 130R etc.

    2. In my opinion DRS was only brought in the counteract the ability of teams, first McLaren, to stall the rear wing. banning the F duct would just mean they’d figure out some other way to do it, so may a swell integrate the possibility into the rules so it can be better controlled.

      1. I cant work out why they dont simplify DRS and just give each driver a number of deployments per race, say 20 for example. Let them be free to use it how they wish to either attack or defend.

      2. @selbbin That is right. DRS was designed to replicate the advantage McLaren were having on straights over other teams with much weaker or no rear wing stalling ability in 2010, in a much safer, controlled fashion. The f duct was creating overtaking while the overtaking group’s adjustable front wing wasn’t. Had it not been banned in 2011, the f duct advantage would have disappeared once every team had perfected it.

        It was the cockpit adjustable front wing that was meant to create closer racing and more overtakes. And that failed for exactly the same reason – every driver used it at the same part of the track, it became a pointless device. DRS would be the same if its use was allowed to be unlimited or a certain number of activations lap, there would be an optimal use and everyone would use it that way, negating any advantage of having the device.

    3. If the leading and the following driver have DRS it cancels the effect out. Do people not get this principle…

      Its the same with fat tyres. Yes it will improve mechanical grip but the fact that all cars will be using that grip still just reduces the difference down to aero which means following cars will still not be able to pass.

      1. of course people understand that @guybrushthreepwood

        what @hare is saying, is that he would like to see DRS implemented to enhance car performance, not to create an advantage between drivers fighting each-other.

        Think about it as an active aerodynamic device like the one you see in most road sports/super/hyper cars

        1. Bingo. High5!

        2. @johnmilk Basically what F-duct was to begin with

          1. @davidnotcoulthard yes, different mechanisms, same results. Even though the F-duct doesn’t have any movable part, while DRS would have to be activated.

            But if we are to have it, I would prefer something like @johnh suggestion below. Similar to the one they use in DTM. Drivers would have a specific number of uses that can be triggered for whatever you need (attacking or defending), this could make for some cool tactics (as long as drivers don’t get advice from the pits, I am sure some of the would panic and press it every-time they are under attack).

  4. I would agree in thinking that the DRS effect will be more powerful this year and lead to easier overtaking. It makes sense given the changes that are being made.

    However, the overtaking that DRS generates is not the type of overtaking that is interesting. The wheel to wheel racing or a scrap for position is what makes overtaking interesting. Simply blasting by someone on a straight at a 10 mph advantage is not all that interesting.

    1. Will the DRS effect be greater in 2017? I thought the DRS had to be increased just to maintain the 2016 effect with the much draggier 2017 cars.

      1. It should be a greater effect in 17. You have a larger wing, generating more down force. When that opens you loose more drag than the previous cars had.

        1. I don’t think it is that simple, because most of the increased drag comes from the much wider tyres.

    2. @sprint9 Neither is seeing a Red Bull stuck behind a Sauber due to an alternate strategy, thus ruining the race for the lead, and making teams try to eke out tyre life, leading to more tyre conservation, leading to more complaints etc.

      1. That’s racing.

        Free overtakes are not.

        1. Spot on.

          Get ballsy, get creative. That’s part of being a great racing driver. Verstappen made some incredible non-DRS moves!

      2. Id agree with your point, but Id still rather see an actual racing move for position. Maybe an alternative is to have some type of lap countdown when a car gets stuck behind someone. Say after 4 laps of not being able to make an actual move then you get the DRS advantage. In that case the race may have been ruined for the Redbull in your example, but it offers the opportunity for a real racing move to happen.

  5. Magnussen expects “better racing” with more powerful DRS

    Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

    1. @ho3n3r Then I’m afraid you must not have heard many in your lifetime.

      1. @mashiat then you don’t understand what an oxymoron is.

        DRS is the definition of fake, bad, boring racing.

        1. @ho3n3r I do understand what an oxymoron is, thank you very much. Still doesn’t make it a good one, and that is your opinion of DRS, not everyone else’s.

          1. @mashiat nope, not everyone’s, just the majority’s.

          2. @keithcollantine any chance of a poll for DRS – either for or against?

          3. @ho3n3r I never disputed that the majority is against it. And the poll has already been done. Look, I prefer DRS because I remember how boring it was before it came in IMO. I would prefer it there was a less artificial way of effectively creating more overtaking, but the bottom line is in this current day formula, there isn’t much of an alternative.

          4. I think there is indeed an alternative. The cars will now have more mechanical grip. If aero is still too dominant they can tweek that and begin to rely more on mechanical grip now that they’ve gone back to having real tires in F1. The trend needs to be, and Brawn has hinted at this, a better ratio of mechanical grip to aero. And that has begun with the advent of these tires.

          5. @ho3n3r Pretty sure we’ve had a poll about DRS – aqnd pretty sure it was way against.

        2. Meant to add, imho there is no place for DRS in F1 in any form of usage, as it is merely a bandage to their aero addiction. Hopefully Brawn can evolve things to get that grip ratio right so that DRS can be abolished for good.

  6. When the car in front uses DRS, is the turbulence it creates reduced? If so, it would seem to make sense to allow DRS everywhere for closer racing.

    1. @potshot-rsa Turbulence isn’t removed, but less slip streaming.

  7. The solution to the unfairness* of DRS is simple. Give each driver a fixed number of uses. No 1 second rule. You can keep the specified zones for safety reasons.

    The clever bit is working out how many uses you get. With 2 zones per track, and say 50 laps per race, give them 50 uses of DRS. You can use it to catch up, overtake, and defend. But if the car behind is genuinely faster, they should need to use DRS less and will eventually have their chance when the lead car has run out.

    *I consider DRS unfair because the driver who is in front was in front for a reason and deserves to have the advantage of dirty air in the corners, and as such doesn’t deserve to be so massively disadvantaged on the straights.

    1. This is a pretty good idea.

      It adds an extra dimension to the race, is easy to visualize on screen for us fans and fair for everyone. For PR reasons I’d do it slightly differently though. I would ban DRS entirely (pleases the purist) and re-introduce KERS but call it ‘Push to Pass’ as that is more clear. With say 80bhp of electrical power ‘X’ times a race to attack, defend or close/create a gap with, this would focus attention on the fact that F1 cars are Hybrids.

      1. one problem with that @jeffreyj, you would need that extra power, that means more batteries, which will add even more weight to the cars. DRS is already installed, no modifications needed and it is more reliable.

        1. Why would you need an extra battery? Lot’s of series do it (hybrid and other) Just top off 80bhp from the harvesting and make it available for ‘X’ times a race via a button.

          1. in that case you are not using the maximum of your PU, you have the 80bhp stored and available when a button is pressed.

            If for example a PU can produce 1000 bhp, you are using 920bhp and have the rest used for kers, Mercedes already has this with their engine mappings (overtake buttons and all).

          2. @johnmilk Engine mappings is just another needlesly complex issue that isn’t properly made visable to fans (both at home and at the track).

            If they just simplify it to quali/race/rain/start modes and then the push to pass, you can easily make it visable who is in what mode and whether or not he’s using his ‘push to pass’. This will make the tactics involved in overtaking, defending and creating or closing a gap all the more engaging for the fiewing public and puts the drivers at the center of the racing instead of engine maps and what not.

    2. @johnh
      Looking at it another way, if the driver in front is in front on merit then he should be able to stay there without needing the advantage of dirty air….

      I’m not a fan of DRS, but until the aerodynamics are sorted out it’s better than bringing back the “Trulli train”.

      Another thought has just struck me: when did blue flags come in? Were they a response to the difficulty of overtaking backmarkers as a result of their dirty air?

  8. DRS… Only one way I would be for it. Allow everyone except P1 car to use it all the time.

  9. Let’s just wait and see how DRS affects the racing this year. After all we have seen it only in a combination with fast degrading tyres, which lead to a lot of highway-style passes. That certainly had nothing to do with real racing.
    I’m curious how it will work out this season with the new aero packages.
    The ideal situation would be that we won’t see any of these “overtakes” halfway down the straights, but more in the braking zones. If DRS helps the driver to get close enough to the car in front, to be able to outbrake the other driver, I wouldn’t see a problem with it.

    The Chinese GP should be a good indicator for the racing that we are gonna see this season.
    In the past couple of years we have seen plenty of those unloved highway-passes on the back straight, because of the tyre situation. Cars on older tyres had absolutely no chance to defend, because the car behind on fresh tyres could carry much more speed through the long double-righthander before the back straight and didn’t even have to use DRS to get passed.

    Hopefully these passes are a thing of the past and we can get back to real racing.

    1. It’s true. I guess we’ve never quite had a ‘fair’ DRS test. It’s always been paired alongside Pirelli designed-to-degrade tyres, and KERS initially, too.

      Saying that, i’m by no means a fan of DRS, at all. But i’m at least hoping some drivers will bother trying to defend this year.

      Nothing worse than the sight of an F1 car with a huge advantage making a defenceless, highway pass on another. I got so bored of hearing “Hamilton makes his way past _______, edging closer to the front of the pack”. Such an inevitability. No exciting in that at all.

      1. **excitement

  10. Lance Stroll, your privilege is showing.

  11. Can somebody explain the caption competition winner?

    1. Instead of pre-flight check, it’s pre-flight Checo.

      1. Thanks, @robbie, for me I don’t get that choice, especially since ‘ your going to need a bigger wall’ was there.

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