The new chassis Formula 2 has introduced this year will make overtaking easier, Oliver Bearman has predicted.
Having tested the new car at Bahrain International Circuit, where the championship begins this weekend, Bearman predicted its distinctive arched rear wing will give a more powerful speed boost when drivers activate the Drag Reduction System.“Mainly the differences between last year’s car and this one starts with the rear wing,” he told the official F2 website. “It creates a bit more drag which hopefully means the DRS is more effective. So the racing and overtaking should be slightly easier and make it even more interesting.”
Bearman, who won four races in his rookie F2 season last year, says other changes to the cars should also improve the racing.
“The downforce created with this car is more from the floor than the old car, there are channels for the air to go under the car. That’s a bit different to the previous year and hopefully it means we can follow other competitors more closely and in turn, make the racing even better.”
Zane Maloney, who like Bearman is entering his second season in the series, also found the car handles much like its predecessor.
“It feels similar,” he said, “if someone drove one day in the old one, one day in the new one, they’re not going to feel massively different. But after doing a full year in the old one, you do feel those small, different things.
“It’s a different way of driving in certain corners but generally they’re quite similar.”
“It does feel a bit different in certain areas like in the high speed, the wings are new, so the downforce levels are a bit different,” he added. “But, when you jump in, you can still tell it’s an F2 car with a turbo and Pirelli tyres, 18-inch wheels. The big things feel the same.”
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GeeMac (@geemac)
28th February 2024, 9:33
Great, now all those tight battles F2 usually gives us will turn into easy fly-bys just like in F1!
S
28th February 2024, 11:17
But at least in F2, there is an equal chance that they can take the position back using the same method.
Unlike F1, where the faster car is faster everywhere and DRS simply acts as a way to make the inevitable overtake happen sooner.
The idea behind the rear wing creating more drag is great as this also helps with slipstreaming – but as noted, that also means that they create more turbulence and can dump more of that drag by opening DRS.
Honestly, it would have been better if they simply significantly reduced downforce.
Dex
28th February 2024, 9:35
Now why would we want it to be easier? I understand those in management who love having some numbers to present (and increase of everything in percentage), but I could do easy things myself. I enjoy seeing athletes or racers doing things beyond my own skill set. DRS overtakes look nothing more impressive than overtakes on a motorway. Not the best of news for me anyway.
MichaelN
28th February 2024, 11:05
Yeah no. There is nothing interesting about cars passing each other. If it was, there’d be grandstands next to highways.
DRS will never be ‘interesting’. DRS passes are utterly forgettable, and rob viewers and attendees of seeing battles around the track. One only has to look at the rain races to see the difference. In the dry drivers don’t even bother trying because they know they can just fly past on the next DRS straight.
DRS should be scrapped, not spread around to other series.
Coventry Climax
28th February 2024, 12:05
Brilliant!
Which, by the way, is a quality that I’m afraid we’ll never be able to say of the FiA.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
28th February 2024, 11:27
That rear wing though.
I need some time to adapt, still haven’t entirely integrated the 18-inch tyres that the cars now look wildly different.
schooner (@schooner)
28th February 2024, 12:31
I suppose that making the DRS stronger and passing easier makes sense, especially for those fortunate few who will find themselves in F1 some day. DRS manipulation is more important to learn than how to properly get by another car without it.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
28th February 2024, 13:25
DRS been introduced into F2 is one of the main reasons i stopped watching it.
It was just never needed as the racing in that category was always brilliant without any of gimmicks. It was for me arguably the best category out there in terms of pure racing that put driver skill and race craft at the forefront.
High degredation tyres and DRS were never needed in that category and the way those things changed the dynamics of the racing completely turned me off it.
People will say that DRS was needed to teach drivers how to use it should they move upto F1 but if a driver gets to F1 & can’t figure out that they need to push a button when he hears a beep at an activation line then he probably has no business been in F1 to begin with.
Additionally I’d argue that teaching drivers how to race without been able to fall back on silly gimmicks would be far more beneficial.
Imre (@f1mre)
28th February 2024, 13:38
I will never get the idea of DRS in feeder series. Make those one-make cars raceable with each other. There are great battles in WEC and GT series without the need of DRS…
MichaelN
28th February 2024, 22:30
Indeed, but those series have much better tyres than Pirelli’s F1 offering, and they have long since figured out that there is much more to race cars than constantly catering to the obsessions of aerodynamicists.