Kimi Raikkonen, Alfa Romeo, Autodromo do Algarve, 2020

DRS “will still be necessary” for F1 after 2022 rules changes

2022 F1 season

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New rules for the 2022 F1 season intended to aid overtaking will not be enough to end drivers’ dependence on the Drag Reduction System to aid passing, one team’s technical director believes.

The regulations, which were delayed from their planned 2021 introduction as a cost-saving measure following the coronavirus pandemic, are intended to make overtaking easier.

Simpler bodywork for front and rear wings and the upper surfaces of the chassis will be mandated, creating less downforce and therefore turbulence in the wake of cars. Designers will be given greater freedom to develop the floor of the car to reclaim downforce via ground effect.

It is hoped this will allow cars to follow more closely and therefore reduce the extent to which drivers depend on DRS to make overtakes. However McLaren’s technical director James Key believes that even if the regulations do their job, DRS will remain necessary to allow overtaking.

“I think if the plans work, [DRS] will be less influential,” he said. “It will still be necessary because overtaking is really what these regs are based around, ultimately.”

Circuit design will continue to be crucial to how readily drivers can overtake each other, says Key.

“No nasty surprises” designing Mercedes installation for McLaren MCL35M – Key
“What you find is that it’s not just cars, it’s also circuit-led as well. F1 cars are so quick around tracks, there’s only a few opportunities where you can get some sort of differential in performance good enough to overtake, obviously, braking the primary one.

“That’s where DRS helps. You look at some some tracks – Spa, maybe, where overtaking is possible in a number of places and Bahrain is very similar; you do see it happening, it’s not like it’s impossible.

“What the new regulations will encourage is closer racing at some of the more tricky tracks, so you take Silverstone or Suzuka, maybe Hungary, even, where it’s difficult to follow and if you can get some get that to work, then you can close up, you can genuinely race in situ rather than having to wait for a straight.

“But the DRS there will probably still play its role in making sure that you can guarantee an overtake. As it stands, its authority would be less, I tend to agree with that.”

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70 comments on “DRS “will still be necessary” for F1 after 2022 rules changes”

  1. So the “temporary solution” we were sold over a decade ago will still be in place two major regulation changes later? Not surprising, but a terrible indictment of the dysfunctional way in which F1 is run.

    1. Well said there Andy.

    2. @red-andy It is depressing. Particularly the fact the last technical rules change made DRS even more important.

      1. Wow you have a high opinion of yourself. Hilarious. Good luck patting yourself on the back

        1. I wish I was wrong.

        2. Pot, meet kettle…

    3. Just like the temporary restrictions some governments have brought in over a flu, once they are in place they don’t want to give them back.

      1. Coventry Climax
        5th November 2020, 17:00

        If you refer to Covid-19 as ‘a flu’, then I seriously doubt your IQ exceeds your shoe-size.

  2. So get back to the drawing board and delay the changes. No need to introduce it if it doesn’t fix anything.

    1. my thoughts too

      I wonder, when was DRS introduced, what would happen if F1 would just use the cars before this period, and use the new hybrid engine package… maybe enlarge the cars a little for the package to fit…
      would racing be good/better again, or isn’t it this simple? :-)

    2. No need to introduce it if it doesn’t fix anything.

      I couldn’t agree more. If this comes to pass, I’ll be so disappointed. Not much good having cool spaceship-type race cars if they can’t race without the sticking plaster of DRS.

  3. “making sure that you can guarantee an overtake”

    Words fail me.

    1. @john-h

      Indeed. Apparently, James Key doesn’t like racing, but wants the cars to end up in the order of their performance. Why then even bother to race?

      1. Well said @aapje, very disappointing

    2. Coventry Climax
      5th November 2020, 17:40

      That’s exactly what struck me, too, John H.
      I’ve been following this sports since I was eleven, 50 years back. Can’t remember having missed an F1 broadcast willingly. I feel I can honestly say I’m rather passionate about motorsports.
      However, I find myself losing interest in F1 these days at the same rate the sports is being turned into a show.
      @Aapje: you, apparently, did find the words, the exact right words, even. To me, it all starts to resemble a parade of ‘praalwagens’ (‘floats’, in english, I believe). Similarly boring as well, by the way.

  4. I dnt see a problem having drs, but maybe they need to look at drs zones on certain Tracks. Adjust the activation points to make the drs better. Not just easy to pass. Drs should not garuntee a pass but increase the possibility of a pass.

    1. @Wayne Most of the time, it indeed doesn’t ‘guarantee’ a pass.

    2. Yes, sadly he not spoke about considering shorter DRS zones, or smaller opening on the wing, despite of both would be quite cheap to implement. And I guess it would take much less time as well. At least to have a bit less very easy overtakes in the zones.

      And it’s disappointing, because he not spoke about what will happen if the new aero package proves to be good, but not good enough. Then they could intensify it with further simplification of aero, or reducing downforce (mostly not downforce which will be originated from ground effect, but, if it’s necessary to drop a bit more they can drop a small amount of downforce generated by the diffusers as well – and ofc more from the upper aero devices). I would not mind that, because if it’s only about straights, speed and acceleration, then that’s solved quite well in drag racing. Or a firework rocket which costs 2$ does pretty good job in these fields, emits a silly sound, and flies away :P

      It’s disappoinintg because they could have live tested it sooner, whether it’s so good that they want to emphasize it a bit more to make it wonderful. Referencing cost reduction seems semi-valid to me here, because at this level they build so good cars, that now they barely need testing (they are clamping preseason testing, mid-season testing, and free practices for a long while, and they are ok with it). So they would be over most of the problems before the first race, if they would be taksed with building very much different F1 cars in one or even in a half year. And if there would be some reliability problems, then that could be their desired randomness, instead of artifical randomness. Randomness originated from lower cots reliability would originate from a much natural root in racing and engineering. I guess in racing its important to distinguish where does the randomness come from, because the further its root is from the on track action, the more consumable and entertaining it is to the spectators. So a cost cap is quite far from the on track action, while the effect of too long DRS zones happens very much in front of everyone’s eyes. So I would push as many artificalities coming from regulations towards off track regulations as possible.

      1. … Randomness originated from lower costs or reliability would originate from …

      2. Haha, now I invented a nasty artifical on track rule, to “stop Mercedes” (lol), how about that:
        Let’s have an anti-DRS for fast cars, so “give them (more) wings” on straights. :( :)

      3. Jockey Ewing, there is the problem, though, that a lot of people seem to have been expecting that the 2022 regulations would be more transformative than others have thought they will be. Certainly, there have been quite a few designers who have suggested the 2022 regulations were, at best, a clumsy way of achieving those objectives, and at worst probably won’t achieve what they’re trying to do.

        1. I liked your posts under Dieter’s article yesterday (about costs and wind tunnels, etc.). Both the article and your posts were cool. Based on this you have likely better knowledge of physics than me. I was quite good at it at elementary school, at the end of elementary I even was 2nd or 3rd at a regional competition, but then I had no college education in physics.

          If the new package goes wrong, that can cost the series some years, while a lot of thing is going on, like electrification of many series, the change is very fast nowadays.

          As I percieve the likes of Brawn, and Newey and even the much lesser known engineers must have a very good idea whether the change will be radical enough to provide sufficiently lesser aero dependency. As I remember Brawn said he would be more satisfied if the aero would be even simpler, but it was the compromised decision of competitors.

          If the simpler aero package does wrong and not works, will they revert to the prev year’s set of rules? Or what will they do? Theoretically less downforce generated by simpler aero elements means less aero dependency, less sensitivity to the turbulent air. Although as the set of rule is not live tested, the package can fail to achieve it’s goals, even quite badly. I think it will likely work to some extent, but it would be better to have simpler aero what is not very specificated at the same time. But that sounds quite paradox. I mean it must be hard or even impossible to create “a non restrictive specification of simplicity”, and do that for today’s F1. Especially if something is so much unsolved like aerodynamics. It’s even hard to measure (thus the high costs of the wind tunnels), not to mention planning without regular testing. Even the young Einstein found some phenomenons of aerodynamics obscure, and then he decided to choose another field.

          About the wind tunnels:
          I think the increasing computational power plays a bit higher role in the last decade’s evolution than the evolution of algorithms. Now parallel programming is much simpler even for indies than it was a decade or a bit more before. It’s getting close to language native, and fool-proof for smaller projects for sure. Graphics cards are also very capable of running parallel tasks. The AI research got stranded decades before because of the algorithms were there but the computational power was not. Now it’s definitely on it’s way again. Combined with big data, AI can be quite cool to create initial drafts (a very high amount of drafts, to find a something amongst those what a human probably would not consider), models, analyzes and filter them, and then hand over the interesting results to the humans. I think this is why wind tunnels can become less and less important by time. I agree, that now, they are important to test the ideas, because aerodynamics is so complex and unresolved, that basically the only way is to do regular measurements.

          As later there will be more and more data fed into some AI, it will be capable of creating better models, probably even exceeding the human’s capabilities, by that time I guess even the best scientists will be sometimes very busy with verifying whether the algorithm evolves towards a desirable direction or not.

          This combined with a nice energy source (maybe fusion energy) could lead very far, even without quantum computing. Although I guess of the power consumption of a wind tunnel F1 teams would be able to run really big server parks already, and 2030 seems to be far away. And as cloud computing power can be used without buying the server park, and billed based on time of usage, it can be even cheaper than those pricy tunnels. Although this Catesby Tunnel is so incredible :)

          And there is the dark side of course, although I don’t really fear the AI future, but with sufficient computing power one can grind up incredible wealth, even quite unnoticed. So for example what could an F1 team do with it’s aero if they would have some kind of incredible computing power. They could use it to grind up more money than ever, and invest it into manufacturing, while having more verified ideas than the competitors. It can change the world in a good way and a really bad way either.

          1. Jockey Ewing, firstly, thank you for your kind response about the CFD modelling in that other thread.

            With regards to the item of simplifying the aerodynamics, even then I think you would be surprised at how large the turbulent wake of the car is and how far it extends. I recall that Peter Windsor was talking with some of McLaren’s former engineers from the early 1990s, and they commented that, back then, they had run studies on the size of the turbulent wakes from the cars and found that their cars were being negatively impacted up to 32 car lengths back from another car.

            Even though the aerodynamics package on something like the MP4/6 might be, by modern standards, fairly simple, those cars were still generating extremely large turbulent wakes and were still experiencing negative effects at a not insignificant distance.

            There have been those who are questioning if the new regulations will have as much of an impact as expected – Newey is notable for his doubts, expressing his opinion that the new regulations will, at least initially, likely increase performance differences between teams. With regards to making overtaking easier, at best he seems to be undecided and that the regulations are a rather poor way of achieving that goal, and most of the time he is generally more pessimistic and thinks they are going to largely fail to meet their targets.

            Peter Prodromou, over at McLaren, has also expressed rather similar thoughts too – he also seems to find the new regulations rather clumsy and also largely expects them to result in diverging performances to begin with, along with expecting them to have a fairly small impact on reducing aero wakes. The main thing he expected the new regulations to do is to make it easier for teams to copy parts from each other, largely because the singular design philosophy that the rules proscribe makes components from one car easier to interchange with those on another.

            There were also the models that Racecar Engineering ran, where they suggested that, whilst the new regulations might have some effect, they felt that the models which have been shown by the sport to date are probably some of the more optimistic ones, and they expected the actual benefits for the trailing car to be smaller than the sport has suggested so far.

            There is also the aspect that those who have looked at the 2021 regulations have noted how proscriptive they are and how they are forcing the teams to converge on a standard design philosophy, and that is not accidental. The whole ethos of the new regulations seems to be that the only way they can achieve the convergence and reduction in impact of the aero effects is through forcing the teams into a singular design philosophy with relatively little divergence within that envelope.

            It is also worth noting that quite a few teams had actually been predicting that, if anything, the 2021 regulations were likely to make DRS more significant, not less. One of the flip sides from the new aerodynamic package was that the efforts to modify the wake signature of the cars was also expected to make slipstreaming markedly less effective as the reduction in drag for the trailing car would be reduced markedly.

            In that respect, the expectation was that DRS would end up being retained because the anticipated marked reduction in the effectiveness of slipstreaming would undo at least part of the theoretical benefits of the new rules – you might follow more closely in the corners, but then find that the straight line advantage you once had via a slipstream has now largely disappeared. DRS would, therefore, be maintained to make up for the fact that the new regulations would have that undesirable side effect.

            As for what might happen if those regulations do not work as intended, I doubt that they’d revert back to the older rule set as the other changes being introduced are likely to make it hard to go back to those rules. For example, the increased mass of the 18 inch wheels means the teams are having to redesign the front of the chassis quite a bit to cope with the higher loads in the retaining tethers, as well as forcing teams to have to change their suspension geometry quite significantly.

            Furthermore, there is a likelihood that, due to the costs that the teams will have sunk into the new rules and the sharp decline in income that’s likely to occur over the next few years, changing back to the old regulations would potentially be prohibitively expensive. What is probably more likely is that you will see attempts to fine tune the new regulations, as there would probably be too much of a backlash from the teams if you tried to make big changes now.

          2. Thank you, I have read it some days before, but I had a busy weekend.
            But I liked it, was well reasoned, and found some new info in it. And some what I have already forgot (like Newey’s being sceptical, that’s something I have read about once before, for sure ).

            I think the suprisingly large wake is why they are following each other with at about or even more than 2 seconds gaps if they not intend to fight (so that’s a way to save tyres).

            The other well explained point, that I liked was the key point of altered “wake signature” and it’s relation to slipstreaming. Yes, that’s for sure that they are very much related.

            The sad thing to me is, that having further convergence of performance is a very high priority to them even at the first races, or at the introductory of a new set of rules. As a spectator I hoped for a quicker debut of this rule set, and it was quite obvious to me that as it’s cheaper they intend to fine tune it.
            Looks like I would be happy with less reliable machinery and the drama induced by lower reliability, because even at higher-than-today-reliability there will be some unlucky ones, and reliability makes up for a very-very high percentage of current costs. (At least seemingly) perfect reliability is still quite far away. If I play with friends, or go karting, of course it would be nice to have. But it looks like factory teams do no want to come up with cars breaking down on TV, not even at this level. This is a point, what I can’t really understand and accept. It takes away a lot of engineering- and racing-wise non-artifical drama. Likely they stepped on this road with reliability just like with aero, and there is no way back to the cigar shaped cars, or at least that would be something different.

            After some thinking, infinitely high reliability would be cool, by being very sterile, and having no impact on individual results, but then why not to have less downforce (even at the cost of pace), and have dancing, sometimes drifting and hard to master cars again. Sorry the likes of wingless Formula Juniors, and older cars, probably seduced me forever. Luckily the other thing that vitiated me is the very grippy and mid-engined-feeling of electric cars :)

  5. This is what happens when knee jerk reactions are taken. Also how much consolation was there with the teams as far as reducing the aero dependency? After all they’re the ones with all of the knowledge it would be logical to assume they would be key in providing solution.

    1. You think 2022 rules are kneejerk? WOw. You should have been around in 94 when they used to ban things on the eve of a season, literally the day before.

      @keith there seems to be no way to log into the site at the moment??

      1. tony mansell- check the settings on your browser.
        In answer to your comment, yes but that doesn’t make the current changes look more thought through. The changes being asked are massive and would take a considerable amount of time and resources to work through successfully.

      2. You do realise they still do that. They banned qualifying engine modes half way through the season this year. Changed the rules for next year to ban Mercedes das system. Mercedes had its fric suspension banned during the season.

  6. Smaller wings and tyres = More driver mistakes. My work is done. No needto thank me FIA

  7. Wow. What’s even the point at this stage? DRS is awfully manufactured and while feeling needed at some tracks, clearly ruins what could be close tightly fought battles in other venues where DRS just stops all excitement and competition dead.

  8. DRS is a great tool to have to bring down the delta needed for an overtake.

    Seeing how Verstappen was 1.2s a lap faster than Bottas at Imola and still could not even come close to even attempt an overtake (until Bottas made a big mistake and went off track) even with DRS shows it’s impact is not that big. Maybe at Portimao it was too strong, but this can be tuned down too.

    Unfortunately viewers often have trouble distinguishing between the huge lap time delta’s created by tyre compounds and age and then incorrectly blame DRS for too easy overtakes. F1 should better explain how DRS works and which small part it has in overtaking.

    It would be nice if F1 could do without DRS perhaps, but there is no way to make it work on all tracks. There will always be tracks where some help is needed to prevent processional races like we had between 1996 and 2009.

    It’s not just for overtaking, but also for allowing different strategies. If no overtaking is possible, as it was without DRS, they will all go for maximum tyre saving strategies like we see in Monaco. With cars going as slow as possible to make it to the end of the race with always as few stops as possible.

    1. But I would counter that if Verstappen had to “do it the hard way” by being close, everywhere in Bottas’ mirrors to put the pressure on him until that mistake made the overtake possible, isn’t that exactly what racing should be!

      Sailing by on the highway (sorry, main straight) is no fun, even if it does get up the statistics @f1saurus

      1. sorry, should be @f1osaurus

      2. @bascb He would still need to be close and do it the hard way.

    2. Coventry Climax
      5th November 2020, 17:47

      DRS would be a great tool if the drivers themselves could choose when and where to use it.

      1. Coventry Climax That’s what they use the electric motors for

    3. @f1osaurus:

      Seeing how Verstappen was 1.2s a lap faster than Bottas at Imola and still could not even come close to even attempt an overtake (until Bottas made a big mistake and went off track) even with DRS shows it’s impact is not that big. Maybe at Portimao it was too strong, but this can be tuned down too.

      The reason why drs didn’t seem very effective was the massive difference in traction out of the corner. Thanks to a combination of dirty air and the best performing engine on the grid with maxxed out hybrid deployment.

      1. The point is that this track clearly needs DRS. While at Portimao it was too much.

        We saw the same at Mugello where in F3 there were even repeated overtakes between the same two cars. Like in the slip streaming battles of the past. The massive effect of the slip stream letting two cars overtake each other lap after lap. No one complained about those though.

  9. Surely they can reconfigure some corners so they are slightly banked, worked really well at the Tuscan GP.

    But we are chasing the wrong butterfly. We want close racing with cars on the edge. If you want 100s of overtakes watch motorised bicycles or junior formula open wheel.

    Cue pic in everyone’s minds eye of Mansell & Senna duking it out in Spain. Fact is they dont like drivers like Mansell anymore, 5 years of failure and hugely difficult to work with, inconsistent and likely to blow it as much as win it. Senna would get to 12 penalty points in FP1 and be run out of the sport with his dubious relationship with fair racing. The days of maverick drivers has long gone, best that is accepted or theres going to be no happy place in F1 for you

  10. The buildup to F1 implosion is becoming more exciting than the races.

  11. I do wonder why I bother with this sport sometimes.
    This temporary fix needs to be phased out as soon as the rule changes come in. We will get used to it not being there and force rule makers to make further improvements without being reliant on this gimmick.

  12. Change DRS range from 0-1 sec to 1-2 sec.
    Have as many DRS zones as you can.

    1. I would like that. I guess probably there would be more “trains” (so drivers following each other). But probably they would not follow each other more than before for the sake of saving tyres.

      But the reasons because of I like it, are
      – because drivers tend to follow each other with a something like 3 seconds gap, if they are in tyre saving mode (it would not interfere with that)
      – but it would make it easier to have a run from that tyre saving position
      – but still, the DRS would close before the overtake attempt, so it would be a helper device
      – there would be less DRS overtakes, but it still would help to have a good run for the attacker
      – this could end up with having some more battles around the braking zones instead of simpler passes

      So with these numbers or sith some fine tuned ones, I wuold like it. The question is whether it would be safe to auto-close the DRS when they reach the 1seconds gap. More rear downforce should not be bad, but it still would happen a bit unpredictably. As far as I know nowdays it closes when the driver hits the break pedaly, but this way the closing could not be exclusively linked to it.

      And is it right?
      “The DRS will automatically be disabled (resetting the rear wing flap to its original position) the first time the driver uses the brakes after activation.”
      So if someone really likes and manages to drive without using the brakes he can go very long or surprisingly long distances without closing the DRS? Aren’t they trying or tried to exploit it? Or is there another closing mechanism? (I found this quote via googling “f1 closing drs”)

      1. The message was misunderstood.
        It’s about changing DRS activation range. If within a second, good luck with just the slipstream.

        1. I think, I also thought of altering DRS activation range from 0-1sec to 1-2sec,
          alongside the current activation mechanism, so opening DRS based on eligibility
          at an activation point based on a gap at a detection point…

          but somehow I made a logical error, that it would be cool to close the already open DRS
          when the gap reduces below 1s, and then I glued it to the idea during my analysis.
          What I glued to it would be bad, because for example if the follower is behind 1.1s at the detection point,
          and therefore becomes eligible to open DRS, then one opens it at the activation point, and after a very
          short while it would be auto-closed when the gap drops below 1s, and that would be dysfunctional.

          Without my glued extension it seems much better, although I think they hardly ever used to gain 2seconds in a single DRS zone, therefore they would pile up, and there would be more “trains” following each other.

          Probably I would like to have the DRS performance per track benchmarked in all sessions before qualifying, and then have adjusted length of DRS zones, or adjusted size of the opening on the wing to control speed differences. So for example to aim for having a 12km/h top speed difference at most instead of 20km/h+ with open DRS.
          (Contrived numbers, just for illustration.) I think it would be safer to do so via manipulating the size of the opening. That would likely mean to have a mechanism, what is capable of opening the DRS to a predefined angle. The angle or proportion should be the same for everyone, based on an average of all entrants.

          My last paragraph about “hacking efforts” by trying to coast and not to break, to extend the DRS zone with another long straight is a completely different story. I was just curious whether anyone tries to do so. But as current F1 cars are very much about maxing out downforce, I guess that would be very much against this philosophy, and therefore it’s hard to even find tracks with suitable sections in the calendar, as it would require to have a long straight after a DRS zone connected by a corner where there is at about ok to coast through, instead of using those incredibly great brakes.

  13. If DRS is still been used beyond 2022 then i’m not sure i’m going to be sticking around for that much longer because for as much as I have adored this sport these past 31 years I absolutely despise DRS & after a decade it’s clear that i’m never going to like it.

    When it was a ‘Temporary band aid solution’ that was only going to be around for a few years I was willing to put up with it while eagerly awaiting the day they finally ditched it. But if it’s going to become something more permanent i’m going to be less willing to just overlook it, Especially with other areas of the sport I actually like also been restricted, banned or just messed with in ways I dislike.

  14. Maybe we cannot get rid of DRS, but its usage definitely should be restricted. I would forget the detention zones and one-second gaps altogether, and let the drivers use it anywhere and any time they want…but no more than three times per race and 50 times per season. It would then become part of strategy, whereas now, depending on their track position, some drivers may use DRS dozen times or more in a race, while others not at all. It’s nonsense.

  15. Overtakes used to be celebrated like goals in football…. (Think Montoya/Schumi Brazil 01, or Villeneuve/Schumi Estoril 96, Button carving his way through the field in Brazil 09, Alonso/webber & kimi/schumi at Eau rouge) Even the anticipation of an overtake would have you on the edge of your seat (Think last 15mins of Imola 05/06, Gilles and Rene at Dijon 79) Unfortunately DRS has watered it down to the point where there is literally no excitement, skill or daring to an overtake. And worst of all it has removed the ‘art’ of defending. F1’s addiction to aero downforce has gone unchecked (apart from the reg changes in 09) and its never bothered to check itself into rehab. I was under the impression that the new regs in 22 would remove the need for DRS, so this is very disheartening to say the least. More downforce through ground effect = less dirty air = bigger chance of a slipstream = more chances at overtakes. F1 cars used to be light and nimble like waterboatmen skating on the surface of water, now they are too long, too heavy and too cumbersome to provide edge of the seat racing at most circuits.

    1. Joe Pineapples
      5th November 2020, 15:10

      +1

    2. Most of that has nothing to do with DRS

  16. I don’t understand, does this mean the rules to allow cars to follow more closely aren’t succeeding to a point where cars can actually follow closely and it’s still going to be a matter of not being able to get within a second or less for a proper overtake?

    I don’t really get the “Quickness” argument? Is Key saying the car’s are so close now performance wise that you have on chance of being fast enough to get an overtake done? Surely that can’t be right?

    1. no chance*

    2. I think his worries are about that even the simpler aero will not be simple enough, and therefore the turbulencies will still affect them too much. So they are uncertain if it will be sufficient. But sadly delaying the live test (which is really going live, as even wind tunnel experiments are a static context compared to real life). It should work but it will maybe insufficient to achieve the goals. And maybe it will be disliked by many as the simplicity and the already very specificated tech rules of F1, might prove to be even more prescriptive and the cars will be even more similar.

      And probably if the new package fails the goals by far will not be because it was not radical enough, but because they missed out on something, left some loophole open, and teams can build cars what are still very aero dependent or generate some crazy turbulencies, while the goal was the opposite.

      The user who is using “GT Racer” name here, linked a very pretty image about the turbulencies generated by F1 cars of different eras. It was so pretty that I had to save it :) He seems to be credible and informed to me, and I like his posts. Now I tried to look this image up, and I have found, that it is originated form an article of Siemens. Likely I will read it. so here is that :
      https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/simcenter/a-cfd-story-the-brief-history-of-formula-one-aerodynamics/

      Naively I interpret it something like this : everything what is more complex than the cigar shaped cars from the earliest years, are generating a lot of turbulent air. The more complex the aero devices are on the following cars (the reciever side of turbulences), the more unpredictability they have to face, because the more they depend on those devices.

      There is no way back to those early days under the name of F1, that would be something else. They would need bigger diffusers, a bit simpler aero, and looser specifications on the tech side, but still stating and enforcing the spirit of the rules more properly somehow. But there are too much interest, money, and interlinkedness involved. So I try to enjoy it as it is, and I find many ways to do so. I like battles for lower positions, I like underdogs, I like characters, I manage to support a driver but hate his team, or to do the complete opposite, so F1 is still pretty colorful to me. I think world has serious problems with expressions being hollowed, and the letter and the spirit being referred interchangeably, when and were and which is more convenient to those who can afford it. That’s basically an attack surface as wide as the whole world, everyone can find his or her own niche in a good way and in a bad way as well. So the roots are deep down to the human nature, through everything including authorities. One thing is for sure, I will not serve any case I don’t like, not even for money.

  17. Didn’t other series implement it and subsequently drop it? Am I thinking of DTM? What other series are left with this gimmick?

    1. I’d probably trade DRS for reverse grids tbh 😏

  18. If that’s the case, while there is still time, perhaps they need to consider modifications to the brakes to make them less efficient thus allowing for a driver to have a chance to out-brake another.

  19. In my mind the problem has less to do with DRS and more to do with the fact that F1 cars have evolved beyond the current track designs. When you only have a single racing line through all the turns you pretty much are stifling opportunities to race.

  20. Maybe they should widen corners to enable passing

    1. And that would be interesting? You’d get some oval racing style overtakes… Cars are the problem, we can’t rebuild all the tracks each time they change the rules. Sure, they can race on motorways (through Siberia, without a single curve, that would be a nice “circuit”). I’d rather watch Nascar though, at least it’s less artificial and full of crazy rules.

  21. No no and no. The teams should be responsible for developing a chassis that can overtake, DRS should end for good

  22. Coventry Climax
    5th November 2020, 17:49

    Am I glad the reverse grid isn’t (yet) implemented. It would never go away again either.

  23. They could always replace it with a Drag Increasor System for the leading car. Made of sequins and feathers.

  24. But I don’t enjoy DRS overtakes at all. We have also almost lost defensive driving, since 99% of overtaking happens on the straight. I don’t need quantity, I don’t mind having like two or three overtakes per race, as long as I see a real battle, brave attempts, smart defending, cars being close… I’m not a child, I never liked those movies where two cars race on a straight road, until someone suddenly remembers to up shift and makes the other one eat dust. That’s how F1 looks to me now, except that we’re talking about a DRS button. Btw DRS will never help Alfa Romeo overtake Mercedes, but it will practically destroy any chance for Alfa to defend against a faster car. DRS helps faster cars lose less time behind backmarkers and now drivers in slower cars look helpless even when they are ahead.

  25. I think F1 shouldn’t depend on DRS any longer.

  26. So what I’m actually reading through the lines is that LM seems to be failing at its F1 missions, Ross Brawn is failing at its technical directive.
    And the chances of their actually being any significant change, seems incredibly low indeed.

    1. SadF1fan I’m not going to take the words of one technical director on this. As much as he knows more than any of us, he also seems to be ignoring things like the driver factor for example. He seems to be thinking the only way a driver can ever pass another is through performance difference in the cars, and makes no allowance for drivers actually plying their trade.

      Just generally speaking, I remain confident that once there are 20 new cars racing in anger we will see what F1 is, and will go from there. I will be quite surprised if they need drs, and if they do initially I am confident they will have reset the rules away from clean air dependence such that they can be further tweaked (as they always are anyway) and drs will indeed be phased out.

      Would be a different story if all TD’s were echoing what Key is saying, to which I would say then that they did not provide good enough input when they had a chance and when Brawn had included all the teams (as he continues to do) to sort F1 out.

      As I say, much is speculation right now, I’m not leaning on one TD’s opinion as gospel, and let’s get these cars on the track and only then will they know what they have and where to go from there. For me the new regs can only be a great improvement as they move away from so much clean air dependence.

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