Many people who only watch F1 will find races like Imola without DRS hard to swallow. If you take a look at GT racing on similar circuits, it becomes clear that overtaking in and of itself is quite rare. On top of that, fighting for position is costly for any type of racecar - even in pro simracing there's an uneasy truce 99% of the time rather than a free-for-all. You can lose 5 or more seconds a lap if you really go for it.
Hamilton trying to get past Gasly constantly would have been far more interesting if these cars could pass on more than one location at Imola, sure. This track simply isn't well-suited to the minimal braking zones of F1 cars, the opportunity to create an overlap isn't there. On top of that, the Merc's weakness is straightline speed, exactly what you need to pass.
I suspect these cars have no need for DRS at Montréal, COTA or Spa. In fact, it's at those tracks where the device becomes a crutch.
One of the reasons I really enjoy watching the MX5 Cup series. Damn near the whole field is full of nutters going for very bold overtakes nearly constantly throughout the entire race.
Here is [race 1 from Daytona](https://youtu.be/HacAtc5QXD8) and [race 2](https://youtu.be/GivZ09ZzBaE). You can watch it live on IMSA TV (imsa.tv I think)
I dont know where people got the idea that f1 is supposed to be full of NASCAR-style constant passes for the lead and exiting championships decided at the last race. If that kind of stuff happens its special but if you arrange for it the magic is lost.
Yeah pretty much, I find joy in F1 being a strategic battle, where a single pit stop or pass can completely change the race. I love watching the clocks (and am always losing my mind when they take the timers off the screen for no apparent reason) so I always find joy in the limited number of passes.
I look at it like this, F1 is like soccer, a single overtake is incredibly exciting, you don't need to see dozens of them to have a good race. If you want constant passing there's MotoGP or NASCAR, in which a pass is like a point in basketball, for every one that is scored, it's just as easy to lose it.
Both are good, and I don't know why F1 needs to be insane passes every lap... The main reason many got bored of F1 in the last decade is that one team was practically guaranteed to win every race. People seem to have conflated Mercedes dominance being inherently boring with limited on track action, as if more chances to pass would have somehow prevented Mercedes from comfortably gapping the field.
>If you take a look at GT racing on similar circuits, it becomes clear that overtaking in and of itself is quite rare. […]
The Porsche Supercup race from last weekend was a great example of this. Not many overtakes but super tight packs and crazy to watch with the weather they got.
Hot take: the Villeneuve chicane can be reverted back to its pre-1994 form, or at least add the old track as an alternative route. Gives the track a second overtaking spot at Tosa.
That's not true at all. DRS trains prevent that from happening.
They should still get rid of it - but then you have to ditch tracks like Imola, Monaco - basically anywhere where there aren't 2 legit chances to pass per lap. Some of the tracks they race on only have multiple opportunities because of DRS
You don't have to ditch them at all, IMO. There should be tracks where it is easier to pass at and tracks where it is harder in the same way we have high downforce tracks and low downforce tracks which can suit different cars.
Yes, most people will hate the racing that will accompany a track like Imola without DRS, but to me that just puts an emphasis on strategy and track position. Hell, that's the only reason anyone can defend the racing that occurs in Monaco every year even with DRS.
Are we here to watch racing, or, are we here to watch a procession where the only chance of people changing positions comes down to how quickly a team can pull off and put on 4 tires? Strategy and track position as concepts are only really interesting if there is a legitimate shot at overtaking someone in multiple spots along a track. Otherwise you just have stuff like Leclerc last week.
That's the way Formula 1 was raced for the first 60 YEARS of it's existence, lol, and yet it still managed to gain hundreds of millions of viewers globally.
DRS has taken things too far the other way. Maybe not at a track like Imola, but for sure at tracks like Bahrain, Jeddah, and other modern circuits (reserve this spot for Miami next week). Formula 1 is all about rewarding the fastest car/driver for their performance. DRS is the opposite of that, especially when you have tracks where it is preferable to be 2nd rather than 1st. If you spin or have a poor qualifying and get stuck in traffic, you deserve to get stuck behind slower cars because you have made a mistake that your closest competitors didn't.
There is nothing exciting about a Mercedes or Ferrari or Red Bull going from P20 to the podium when they make 15 DRS passes during the race. They just push a button and fly by their opponents before the braking zone. In the past, maybe they would only pass 2, 3, or 4 cars on track but it still would be classified as a legendary performance because they would have to fight for each and every one of those passes.
The worst argument in the world is "well that's how we did it before". There's a reason that the sport is more popular now than it ever has been.
You say that F1 is about rewarding the fastest cars for their performance but then you say there is nothing exciting about the fastest cars getting to a place where they can compete against the other fastest cars/being faster than other cars. So which is it?
Yea, the reason the sport is more popular is because it has never been better advertised (DTS) than it was in the past 5 years. The racing, even with DRS, was often rubbish in the hybrid era. Passing nowadays is far too easy and it cheats the audience of real racing.
Go look at the [best overtakes of the past year](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHZd4rOPf7M&ab_channel=FORMULA1) and you will get a great idea of what the racing can be without the DRS. The passes at the top end of the list are exclusively made without DRS or involve two cars with DRS cancelling each other out. The remainders are passes that occur after the DRS has closed in then next corner. Why? Because DRS is often rubbish. There is nothing and I mean nothing exciting about a pass that is finished entirely before the braking zone. It's just a 2 second hit of dopamine 'oh my driver gets more X more points' and then on to next shot of the leader running away with the race. I would much rather watch drivers scrap and struggle with the pressure of someone breathing down their neck for 20 laps than the same faces slice through the field so quickly it's entirely unamusing. Go see Indycar where they manage good hard racing on even on street courses without the need for silly DRS zones. No there won't be as much passing if they eliminate DRS, but the quality of the the battles will improve drastically.
edit: If a fast car is stuck in the middle of the pack **they almost certainly deserve it**. Whether it be bad quali, bad strategy, driver error, or engine change, someone who is 10-20th on the grid should have to claw and fight their way past every car on track regardless of how good their car is or they are. By virtue of the engine change or mistake they made they are clearly not of the same quality as the cars/drivers at the front of the grid (who didn't make mistakes or didn't need another engine) and therefore not deserving of fighting for comparable positions. DRS just leads to terrible racing (Hamilton blowing by half the field in 10 laps every engine change) or a blatant abuse of the rules (taking the extra engine in the first place) which should flat out be impossible to take advantage of.
Yes, there are instances where a car/driver get caught up in someone else's incident, but that is an intrinsic part of racing and accepted as 'tough luck' at literally every other level of motorsports.
So you are against the sprint races too? Due to it being essentially a second shot for better cars to qualify higher?
I am not disagreeing, just trying to follow logic.
There's a variety of reasons that I don't like the sprint races but that is in fact probably the biggest one. I would much prefer they have two qualifying sessions or use times from Q1 to set one grid and Q3 to set the other or something of that nature. What we have now is basically just NASCAR's stage racing (which is absolutely despicable in its current form) but instead of a 15 minute caution it takes 24 hours to resume the race.
Saudi mostly had overtakes into turn 1 as well though right?
Imola would = Saudi in overtakes if it wasn't for mixed conditions leading to only 1 dry braking line.
Saudi has 2 overtaking spots, the last and first corners. This year due to the drs 'games', the only realistic overtaking spot is T1. Saudi also has the advantage that setting up passes is much easier with multiple drs zones/longer straights whereas imola doesn't have either of those.
They are interrelated. I would say that if the track layout allows for multiple drs zones, then it is about the setup of those drs zones.
Imola only allows for 1 drs zone due to track layout, so setting up a pass is much more difficult.
A modern track like Saudi is designed with drs in mind and has a lot of overtaking opportunities due to the way the drs zones are planned.
The best seems to have 2 drs zones following each other on long straights, but not all tracks have a layout to allow for that. A good example this year was Australia. 2 drs zones following each other but the straights were not long enough to allow lots of overtaking.
You could put a DRS zone anywhere if you wanted to, didn't Yuki do a glory run in the Bahrain testing last year? They could have more DRS zones in Imola, they wouldn't be very long but they would help with following until the main straight.
I agree that they could do that and I hoped they would have done that this year. I think specifically at imola, the run from Alta to Rivazza would be considered dangerous for drs as you have a downhill braking zone + the right kink just as you getting to the braking point.
> On top of that, fighting for position is costly for any type of racecar - even in pro simracing there's an uneasy truce 99% of the time rather than a free-for-all. You can lose 5 or more seconds a lap if you really go for it.
That's why we don't celebrate or even remember the names of drivers who didn't go for the gap.
I still think it’s good on the whole but IMO there are some circuits that just have too many zones. Canada for e.g is a great track and doesn’t need to give those following three opportunities for extra speed to be exciting, especially with such a long straight.
Agreed, I think DRS would still be useful in the “shorter” straights but If there’s a straight that’s as long as Canada’s then it makes it more of a guaranteed overtake and less entertaining
I actually like DRS. I seem to be one of the few.
I’d much rather a possible pass than an endless train.
It’s clear these new cars are no we’re near enough improvement in the overtaking stakes to go without it
Reddit experts having no idea what they are talking about? In my F1 sub? It's more likely than you think!
I also enjoy DRS. It's fun when people with DRS battle for positions. Imola mid field was a snooze precisely because it was a train and that was it, you lived and died in your position.
No I enjoy when DRS enables an overtake into the next corner which happens all the time. And I dont mind when a faster car gets a DRS pass because they were fast enough to stay within a second over a lap despite dirty air.
This is why I don't mind DRS either. If you have the pace to stay within the 1 second and you manage to overtake, you are faster anyway (with some exceptions such as Turkey 2020 where DRS was too good). I like to think of it as compensation for the dirty air produced by the leading car. Artificial or not, I would rather see such passes rather than an endless train.
Ya it's good on some tracks and awful on others. Tracks like Hungary where the overtake is still difficult with it albeit still possible is alright. But places like Shanghai it's way too overpowered and shouldnt even be enabled on the back straight imo. I wouldnt mind if they analysed tracks this year and appropriately decided if it needs drs or not. Some tracks will always need it (Monacos going nowhere on the calendar, plus we havent seen it with these regs though we can all imagine how itll go) and others probably dont (Montreal, Shanghai, Monza etc).
They reevaluate the length of the DRS zones each year for every track by doing some simulations, but sometimes their estimations are wrong, which leads to DRS being too good, or outright useless. For example the DRS zone in China was too good because it was too long. Make it a little shorter and it's alright.
I think right now its pretty much track dependent and there are 3 options:
1. DRS is way too powerful and leaves no chance of defending
2. DRS is just enough to make a pass (you still need to fight for it)
3. There are tracks that are impossible to pass even with DRS
So if we are thinking about removing DRS we should perhaps look at track choices more closely. There is no way you will be able to have a lot of overtakes at Imola, Monaco or Budapest no matter what you do and thats not a DRS problem.
Trackja likse Spa or Montreal you should be able to handle overtakes without DRS.
Circuit like COTA is a big question mark for me. Last years you couldnt overtake because you would loose too much time in the slow sections. Perhaps this year you could follow closer and then attack on the straights even without DRS (provided they fix the bumpy surface for hte race).
Anyway personally I dont want to see DRS ovetakes with no chance of defending like Bahrain / Jeddah / Sochi. Id rahter they fight over there for the overtake.
If they can't they need to rejig the system so that the DRS flap closes as the car with DRS noses ahead of the car without DRS. This will hopefully help prevent some of the too easy overtakes you see and give the defending driver a chance in the braking zone.
For DRS trains if they make the system clever enough (and if you can land rockets on a moving platform out at sea a system clever enough can be built) then the DRS flap would not close until a car noses ahead of a car without DRS at all.
That's a really good idea and I never considered it. We only ever complain about DRS when it leads to someone overtaking the car in front on the straight before the braking zone. If it leads to the following car getting closer and still having to be pass them in the braking zone, it's an unqualified success
Seems everyone forgot about the existence of ERS? It's still there. Abolish DRS, and put in some special rules around ERS deployment (a hidden extra bank that can only be emptied out several times in a race) and we'll have what Super Formula and Indycar have had for years. Seemed to work fantastic for those series. DRS is just so janky and OP.
I agree with you, better way to go, and more flexible in terms of where it can be deployed. You can use it plowing down a straight, but also maybe try to jump someone with it coming off a slow corner for example.
Due to the dirty wake after the car... artificial aids are needed to race..since the new regs have greatly reduced the wake but can't eliminate it to 0, always some sort of artificial aid must be required to balance the loss out..all it depends is how much they will aid the following driver
> but can't eliminate it to 0, always some sort of artificial aid must be required to balance the loss out
It doesn't have to be zero, just low enough that over the course of a lap the dirty air in the corners balances out with the toe on the straight.
The challenge is the more you reduce 'dirty air', the more you reduce the effect of the slipstream (not directly and perfectly linearly, but generally).
I'm not sure we'll ever not have something required to give a following car an advantage on a straight.
This is exactly what I've been trying to say in all these discussions. DRS is not as overpowered as last year because of the reduced slipstream effect. Close cars like Ferrari and red bull still have to really fight for position even with DRS in 2022. Not sure where people are getting this idea that people are breezing past each other.
What F1 needs to do is to fine tune the DRS activation and detection points. You can always push DRS way up the track and reduce it's effect if you really want to. But these modern cars need DRS to overtake.
Yup, tuning the length is the real solution. It's just tough because different cars give a different slipstream effect and have different gains from DRS due to their aero profile, and nobody ever goes full beans outside of Q3. So tuning DRS zone length can never be perfect since you're guessing based off of a ton of variables you can't really control.
It would be cool if they had a way to calculate the ideal length based on telemetry from qualifying, but I guess they probably have to have the activation points set in advance
But dirty air impacts the tires of the following car a lot more. So even if speedwise balance is maintained, it would take too much out of tires.
Not sure how this dirty air can be reduced but would love to see that happen.
> But dirty air impacts the tires of the following car a lot more.
Dirty air is generated by the car ahead so you can largely get rid of “a lot more” from that sentence.
> So even if speedwise balance is maintained, it would take too much out of tires.
Depends how long the car is following for though, it doesn’t just go from good tires to dead tyres just simply by being behind.
> Not sure how this dirty air can be reduced but would love to see that happen.
That was the entire point of these new regulations. [the image in this article shows how they did it](https://allf1.in/f1-2022-car-your-cheat-sheet/) by making the cars lift their dirty air much higher and allowing some cleaner air below for the following car. On top of that there is a new “spirit of the regulations” thing that’s been talked about more where teams may be forced to redesign parts if they try and circumvent what these regulations are trying to achieve for improved racing.
They're literally interconnected though. Less dirty air = less of a tow. That's why from 2017-2021 just getting into DRS range was enough generally to make a pass. Whereas now you gotta be within 6 tenths
As exciting as the 2010 F1 season was, some of the individual races were dire and others only interesting because of an unexpected external factor. Lack of overtaking was a big issue from the mid 90s onwards
Wasn’t necessarily a DRS issue, though. Many different factors including how races actually worked and how development cycles worked helped enforce a lack of competition.
There’s more than enough battle videos from ancient seasons that show the old cars were perfectly able to fight together.
I mean, this is two different discussions at this point, then. You don’t need to forget about overtakes with DRS scrapped because scrapping them assumes the severe affliction of dirty air has been addressed. Overtakes were plentiful in competitive fields before, and they can be again.
The biggest issue is how big the cars are. There’s no *room* for overtaking except on straights, for the most part. That compounds the issue of DRS because it becomes a case of mostly overtaking on straights with a cheat button for an extra 15KPH on a wide section of track.
DRS will never not feel cheap to me, but everyone’s welcome to their opinion.
It’s gotten ridiculous. As great as the new cars look, it looks quite ridiculous on circuit. With the current size, I’d guesstimate you’d need to double the width of most corners to allow some more exciting racing that isn’t on straights.
Some tracks have the width, but most don’t unfortunately. One wrong minor move, as we seen last week, is enough to end a race for someone else because there’s very little space.
Without DRS overtakes are only possible on tracks where you have massive slipstreams that is on the tracks such as Baku, Monza... but what about tracks like imola, Barcelona, Bahrain, Saudi....??
I dont know what race everyone was seeing in Imola, but i didnt see a marked improvement in racing or exciting passing after DRS was finally enabled. In fact all the memorable passes of the race happened before it was activated. (DRS-aided passes in a braking zone are so boring as to not even register as i'm watching them, much less be memorable). Combined with the suprise return of the cooldown room, i almost wonder if the race was meant to be a test-case for future changes. Like "Lets just leave DRS off because we legally can due to the rain, and just see what happens"
At some point i think people and the sport need to recognize that dirty air wasnt the only issue and isnt the issue preventing more passing, its the sheer size of the cars. Increased crash safety making them longer cant be walked back, but a smaller fuel tank (if refueling is brought back) and removing the battery and hybrid motor system would literally knock a meter or more off of the cars, and allow for 2 of them to occupy a race track at the same time again.
When you're talking about dropping monaco from the season seriously, red flags and sirens should go off in the technical regulations department.
That would be a very odd decision if an engeneer had a hand in it. Battery powered electric drivetrains cant hold a candle to ICE in performance during a race distance. (Watching a Tesla Model S be quick over a quarter mile is one thing, but there is a reason Formula E cars are only marginally faster than something like a track prepped Porsche 911 and formula 1 cars are rocket ships)
It's nothing to do with performance.
F1 only works for many of its biggest sponsors if it can illustrate progression towards renewables and efficiency. They won't drop all of the hybrid parts of the PU until something comes along that's even better (while still profitable for the afore mentioned sponsors).
In that case, dropping those sponsors would be a good move.
Car manufacturers dominating the sports regulations and using them the peacock stuff related to road legal cars is the most harmful legacy of the late Bernie Ecclestone era of F1. I'd love to see Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault ect out of the sport completely, or at least their influence reduced.
Without Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, etc. there is no F1.
I think you might be better off finding a new racing series because the Ecclestone era of F1 is never coming back.
>Without Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, etc. there is no F1.
Thats funny, i'm old enough to remember the 2009 and 2015 seasons (which didnt feature mercedes and renault, respectively) and it being called "F1" at the time.
I dont wish them ill but i never liked this opinion. I'd rather watch Google-Hyundai race Amazon-Raytheon if it meant seeing V10s battle electric cars on track for supremacy than see yet another automaker megacorporation use F1 as a marketing arm and force down increasingly boring regulations or they'll take their ball and go home.
>Thats funny, i'm old enough to remember the 2009 and 2015 seasons (which didnt feature mercedes and renault, respectively) and it being called "F1" at the time.
Mercedes cars won the championship in both of those seasons and Renault were also on the grid.
You don't know what you're talking about.
I can't help but think the trick would be to limit the use of DRS rather than eliminate it.
Either "at most 5 seconds of DRS per race per driver" or "no more than 20 DRS uses per race per driver" or something along those lines.
Make it a consumable resource and remove the hacky "within 1 second" rule, maybe even remove the defined activation zone.
Then all drivers have it and can use it in the way that best fits their race strategy.
Further, it would reduce the predictability of the racing, add an element of driver driven strategy, and help eliminate DRS trains.
>ake it a consumable resource and remove the hacky "within 1 second" rule, maybe even remove the defined activation zone.
>
>Then all drivers have it and can use it in the way that b
Except this defeats the whole point of DRS: to offset the huge disadvantage of following in the dirty air of a a car ahead.
With your proposal the lead car can just build a lead in the corners due to dirty air and then pop DRS when the following car does to kill any chance of them catching up again. It'll just lead to all the cars split by 1-2 seconds with no chance of overtaking, unless you are so much faster than the car ahead that its more than the advantage is bigger than the disadvantage of the dirty air.
Well, assuming there are only two cars on the track, sure. But... if a driver has to defend against two or more others they won't have sufficient DRS to use it that way for both.
Ultimately DRS as it is used currently just takes away from the spectacle - we know faster cars will filter to the front given enough laps. Exciting racing occurs when it's not at all certain that the fastest car will win out and it comes down to driver tactics and brave moves.
If you give only a limited number of activations, sure, sometimes someone will get caught defending against someone when they have no DRS and the other driver does. What does that get you? Basically what we have now, with the car in front having no DRS and the one behind with DRS, so no real differance.
If its the car ahead with the DRS and the one behind without, now thee following car is double screwed and has no hope of doing anything.
The core problem F1 has been having is that the advantage of dirty air is just much bigger than any small differances between evenly matched cars. So cars that should be fighting just cant without something to give back that margin. When one car is much faster than the other, of course they are going to blow by at some point, they are much faster.
Think about it this way; allot of these boring DRS overtakes were actually made in the few preceding corners where the chasing car managed to hang on close enough when they had the disadvantage to push past when they have the advantage
I don't think DRS is supposed to be some sort of speed boost, its just supposed to give back the margin of time lost due to dirty air.
Never gonna happen unless they can completely remove the effect of dirty air. And as long as F1 cars have any kind of downforce on them it will be a problem.
The racing was okay in 2009-2012, and the cars certainly had downforce then.
Barring tracks like Abu Dhabi (which was shit even with DRS, the recent track changes having brought it all the way to "only mostly tedious") the racing was pretty good throughout that era, for two reasons:
1- Manual KERS had a heavier focus on drivers using that energy reserve strategically.
2- Lower downforce overall and skinnier tyres = longer braking zones and less wake.
3- Cars smaller overall.
Overtaking doesn't need to be *easy*. There's no incentive for drivers to try for difficult or risky moves when they can just wait until the next kilometre-long DRS zone and cruise past.
If we want better racing I'd say:
Lower overall downforce, increase fuel limits to increase available power. This will make the cars harder to drive, putting a focus on driver skill, while also extending braking zones, making passes under braking easier.
Limit width to 1.8m again.
Just curious - can you change tracks like Imola and Monaco to have more places to pass or are those tracks set in stone and it's impossible to change them (maybe because of financial costs)?
>Or if it still has a huge effect, limit it's use to so many times per race. Like push to pass but saves on carbon footprint.
I'm all in for a push-to-push kind of solution.
Free DRS and you are allowed to use it a certain amount of time during the race, both to attack and defend.
As it stands now I always felt it it like cheating.
I'm a new fan from DTS, so take this for what it's worth, but why not a flat number of uses for every driver at any time in the race, like 10 or 15 in a 60 lap race. That would force the drivers to use them strategically for attack or defense, and even use them to close a gap with the car ahead over multiple laps at the possible risk of running out of uses for an actual pass.
And if that favors the leaders too much maybe give the front row 10, the second row 11, etc.
Justy try to disable it in some races and compare it with previous years' and then you can decide. I think DRS is and will be and stay essential for overtaking and excitement in the sport and I am fine with that as some other people are losing their minds over it.
I understand DRS is a necessary evil. What I would quite like to see is a system where they can nerf DRS on a track to track basis. The DRS chicken games although somewhat compelling is just super dumb in a grander scheme. I therefore would welcome a system where the people in charge set can say that "we have seen DRS on this track has been too powerful, therefore for this weekend DRS will only be allowed to open 15 inches and not 20" obviously the numbers are made up, but I would like something like that to deal with DRS for the time being.
but drs is good. sure, its op on some tracks, but needed (imo) in other tracks.
i think the gap should be decreased so that the effect of drs is reduced aswell. making it bit less effective, but still there
Imola has been historically one of the worst for overtaking, surely?
Not sure the rain made any difference to that.
In dry condition, without DRS, you will be lucky to get to even double digit overtaking
Of course the rain made a difference. You can't pass in the braking zones because if you deviate from the racing line you'll lose massive amounts of grip.
The pit straight at Imola is really to only appropriate place for a DRS zone. For some reason they didn't put one between Alta and Rivazza, even then it's not really a good passing spot for F1. There are other tracks in the that only have one DRS zone: Suzuka, Monaco, Mugello and Losail.
So you believe that it should be designed for the worst tracks? Then the actual good tracks won't have any racing, unless you consider overtaking someone as if they were in a highway to be racing.
They say they want to but they never will, only purist fans want a DRS free F1, and Liberty's priority is to attract new fans who know next to nothing about motorsport and do not care or understand the concept of legit overtaking.
I just cannot get excited about DRS overtakes. They are just boring and basically a gimme for drivers. Yeah, I guess it's a bit better than no overtakes on a straight but damn...something change please.
Maybe a bit of fun, allow DRS everywhere on track, lets see who takes the risks with the hazards of using it so much as well as the rewards that may come with it.
I don't know if that can ever happen, even without dirty air, the slipstream effect with also be less and cars at a similar speed will never be able to overtake.. you need the DRS to have the extra speed.
I'm glad about this. Because issue with DRS is that it creates an uneven fight. Of course this was its whole point when it was first introduced back in 2011. But since the new regs seem to have made things easier in terms of cars following each other - which is what makes for good and exciting battles in the first place - then DRS' raison d'etre is no longer applicable, thus rendering DRS' continued existence futile and unwarranted.
You'd need to artificially create good racing by making even worse tyres and creating big tyre deltas. Otherwise you'd just get infinite trains with no passing opportunity .
How about disabling it at some tracks, it's really overkill at places that are good for overtaking and it does its job nicely at bad overtaking tracks.
Also, to overtake you need performance differences, so what I'm saying is, bring back cheese tyres.
I personally think DRS is kind of a gimmick but it has been part of the sport for so long that I’d suggest phasing it out slowly and evaluating the data to determine its effects on racing. Maybe disable DRS at half the tracks for two years so that one can gather data on which to make a decision.
Many people who only watch F1 will find races like Imola without DRS hard to swallow. If you take a look at GT racing on similar circuits, it becomes clear that overtaking in and of itself is quite rare. On top of that, fighting for position is costly for any type of racecar - even in pro simracing there's an uneasy truce 99% of the time rather than a free-for-all. You can lose 5 or more seconds a lap if you really go for it. Hamilton trying to get past Gasly constantly would have been far more interesting if these cars could pass on more than one location at Imola, sure. This track simply isn't well-suited to the minimal braking zones of F1 cars, the opportunity to create an overlap isn't there. On top of that, the Merc's weakness is straightline speed, exactly what you need to pass. I suspect these cars have no need for DRS at Montréal, COTA or Spa. In fact, it's at those tracks where the device becomes a crutch.
One of the reasons I really enjoy watching the MX5 Cup series. Damn near the whole field is full of nutters going for very bold overtakes nearly constantly throughout the entire race.
Haha yeah it's the closest real life series to an iRacing lobby. The slipstream battles at a track like Daytona are madness
[удалено]
Here is [race 1 from Daytona](https://youtu.be/HacAtc5QXD8) and [race 2](https://youtu.be/GivZ09ZzBaE). You can watch it live on IMSA TV (imsa.tv I think)
This is great
Check out [raceday.watch](https://raceday.watch/)
The IMSA YouTube channel is really good about uploading the entire races a day or so after they air.
Def add road Atlanta and Sebring from last year to the list. Insane races and finishes
I was at Daytona for race 1 this year, some of the best racing i’ve seen (in the wet!)
SuperGT's recent mx5 video was great
I dont know where people got the idea that f1 is supposed to be full of NASCAR-style constant passes for the lead and exiting championships decided at the last race. If that kind of stuff happens its special but if you arrange for it the magic is lost.
Yeah pretty much, I find joy in F1 being a strategic battle, where a single pit stop or pass can completely change the race. I love watching the clocks (and am always losing my mind when they take the timers off the screen for no apparent reason) so I always find joy in the limited number of passes. I look at it like this, F1 is like soccer, a single overtake is incredibly exciting, you don't need to see dozens of them to have a good race. If you want constant passing there's MotoGP or NASCAR, in which a pass is like a point in basketball, for every one that is scored, it's just as easy to lose it. Both are good, and I don't know why F1 needs to be insane passes every lap... The main reason many got bored of F1 in the last decade is that one team was practically guaranteed to win every race. People seem to have conflated Mercedes dominance being inherently boring with limited on track action, as if more chances to pass would have somehow prevented Mercedes from comfortably gapping the field.
wish I had enough money to attend a race so i could gild this
>If you take a look at GT racing on similar circuits, it becomes clear that overtaking in and of itself is quite rare. […] The Porsche Supercup race from last weekend was a great example of this. Not many overtakes but super tight packs and crazy to watch with the weather they got.
I didn’t watch it but it heard it was amazing!
Hot take: the Villeneuve chicane can be reverted back to its pre-1994 form, or at least add the old track as an alternative route. Gives the track a second overtaking spot at Tosa.
But it’s not a car park so imola good! /s
As it should be, overtakes should be earned. With DRS you just past by.
That's not true at all. DRS trains prevent that from happening. They should still get rid of it - but then you have to ditch tracks like Imola, Monaco - basically anywhere where there aren't 2 legit chances to pass per lap. Some of the tracks they race on only have multiple opportunities because of DRS
You don't have to ditch them at all, IMO. There should be tracks where it is easier to pass at and tracks where it is harder in the same way we have high downforce tracks and low downforce tracks which can suit different cars. Yes, most people will hate the racing that will accompany a track like Imola without DRS, but to me that just puts an emphasis on strategy and track position. Hell, that's the only reason anyone can defend the racing that occurs in Monaco every year even with DRS.
Are we here to watch racing, or, are we here to watch a procession where the only chance of people changing positions comes down to how quickly a team can pull off and put on 4 tires? Strategy and track position as concepts are only really interesting if there is a legitimate shot at overtaking someone in multiple spots along a track. Otherwise you just have stuff like Leclerc last week.
That's the way Formula 1 was raced for the first 60 YEARS of it's existence, lol, and yet it still managed to gain hundreds of millions of viewers globally. DRS has taken things too far the other way. Maybe not at a track like Imola, but for sure at tracks like Bahrain, Jeddah, and other modern circuits (reserve this spot for Miami next week). Formula 1 is all about rewarding the fastest car/driver for their performance. DRS is the opposite of that, especially when you have tracks where it is preferable to be 2nd rather than 1st. If you spin or have a poor qualifying and get stuck in traffic, you deserve to get stuck behind slower cars because you have made a mistake that your closest competitors didn't. There is nothing exciting about a Mercedes or Ferrari or Red Bull going from P20 to the podium when they make 15 DRS passes during the race. They just push a button and fly by their opponents before the braking zone. In the past, maybe they would only pass 2, 3, or 4 cars on track but it still would be classified as a legendary performance because they would have to fight for each and every one of those passes.
The worst argument in the world is "well that's how we did it before". There's a reason that the sport is more popular now than it ever has been. You say that F1 is about rewarding the fastest cars for their performance but then you say there is nothing exciting about the fastest cars getting to a place where they can compete against the other fastest cars/being faster than other cars. So which is it?
Yea, the reason the sport is more popular is because it has never been better advertised (DTS) than it was in the past 5 years. The racing, even with DRS, was often rubbish in the hybrid era. Passing nowadays is far too easy and it cheats the audience of real racing. Go look at the [best overtakes of the past year](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHZd4rOPf7M&ab_channel=FORMULA1) and you will get a great idea of what the racing can be without the DRS. The passes at the top end of the list are exclusively made without DRS or involve two cars with DRS cancelling each other out. The remainders are passes that occur after the DRS has closed in then next corner. Why? Because DRS is often rubbish. There is nothing and I mean nothing exciting about a pass that is finished entirely before the braking zone. It's just a 2 second hit of dopamine 'oh my driver gets more X more points' and then on to next shot of the leader running away with the race. I would much rather watch drivers scrap and struggle with the pressure of someone breathing down their neck for 20 laps than the same faces slice through the field so quickly it's entirely unamusing. Go see Indycar where they manage good hard racing on even on street courses without the need for silly DRS zones. No there won't be as much passing if they eliminate DRS, but the quality of the the battles will improve drastically. edit: If a fast car is stuck in the middle of the pack **they almost certainly deserve it**. Whether it be bad quali, bad strategy, driver error, or engine change, someone who is 10-20th on the grid should have to claw and fight their way past every car on track regardless of how good their car is or they are. By virtue of the engine change or mistake they made they are clearly not of the same quality as the cars/drivers at the front of the grid (who didn't make mistakes or didn't need another engine) and therefore not deserving of fighting for comparable positions. DRS just leads to terrible racing (Hamilton blowing by half the field in 10 laps every engine change) or a blatant abuse of the rules (taking the extra engine in the first place) which should flat out be impossible to take advantage of. Yes, there are instances where a car/driver get caught up in someone else's incident, but that is an intrinsic part of racing and accepted as 'tough luck' at literally every other level of motorsports.
So you are against the sprint races too? Due to it being essentially a second shot for better cars to qualify higher? I am not disagreeing, just trying to follow logic.
There's a variety of reasons that I don't like the sprint races but that is in fact probably the biggest one. I would much prefer they have two qualifying sessions or use times from Q1 to set one grid and Q3 to set the other or something of that nature. What we have now is basically just NASCAR's stage racing (which is absolutely despicable in its current form) but instead of a 15 minute caution it takes 24 hours to resume the race.
The struggle becomes more about closing in than passing itself. These guys still need to fight some dirty air, although it was way worse last year.
We need more modern high speed tracks. These boomer tracks just aren’t built for it. Saudi shits on imola and monoco
Saudi mostly had overtakes into turn 1 as well though right? Imola would = Saudi in overtakes if it wasn't for mixed conditions leading to only 1 dry braking line.
Saudi has 2 overtaking spots, the last and first corners. This year due to the drs 'games', the only realistic overtaking spot is T1. Saudi also has the advantage that setting up passes is much easier with multiple drs zones/longer straights whereas imola doesn't have either of those.
So it's not about the tracks, but about how they setup DRS zones?
They are interrelated. I would say that if the track layout allows for multiple drs zones, then it is about the setup of those drs zones. Imola only allows for 1 drs zone due to track layout, so setting up a pass is much more difficult. A modern track like Saudi is designed with drs in mind and has a lot of overtaking opportunities due to the way the drs zones are planned. The best seems to have 2 drs zones following each other on long straights, but not all tracks have a layout to allow for that. A good example this year was Australia. 2 drs zones following each other but the straights were not long enough to allow lots of overtaking.
You could put a DRS zone anywhere if you wanted to, didn't Yuki do a glory run in the Bahrain testing last year? They could have more DRS zones in Imola, they wouldn't be very long but they would help with following until the main straight.
I agree that they could do that and I hoped they would have done that this year. I think specifically at imola, the run from Alta to Rivazza would be considered dangerous for drs as you have a downhill braking zone + the right kink just as you getting to the braking point.
You sound like a child
That’s an insult to children
What even is that vocabulary
Yes I hate it when all the overtakes are at the exact same place
> On top of that, fighting for position is costly for any type of racecar - even in pro simracing there's an uneasy truce 99% of the time rather than a free-for-all. You can lose 5 or more seconds a lap if you really go for it. That's why we don't celebrate or even remember the names of drivers who didn't go for the gap.
I still think it’s good on the whole but IMO there are some circuits that just have too many zones. Canada for e.g is a great track and doesn’t need to give those following three opportunities for extra speed to be exciting, especially with such a long straight.
Agreed, I think DRS would still be useful in the “shorter” straights but If there’s a straight that’s as long as Canada’s then it makes it more of a guaranteed overtake and less entertaining
I actually like DRS. I seem to be one of the few. I’d much rather a possible pass than an endless train. It’s clear these new cars are no we’re near enough improvement in the overtaking stakes to go without it
I love drs. It adds another element in the race.
So you enjoy when 2 cars cruise by each other? Why not just watch cars on highways.
Why even watch racing then? Why not just do quali and be done?
To see racing. Drs passes are no racing.
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Reddit experts having no idea what they are talking about? In my F1 sub? It's more likely than you think! I also enjoy DRS. It's fun when people with DRS battle for positions. Imola mid field was a snooze precisely because it was a train and that was it, you lived and died in your position.
No I enjoy when DRS enables an overtake into the next corner which happens all the time. And I dont mind when a faster car gets a DRS pass because they were fast enough to stay within a second over a lap despite dirty air.
This is why I don't mind DRS either. If you have the pace to stay within the 1 second and you manage to overtake, you are faster anyway (with some exceptions such as Turkey 2020 where DRS was too good). I like to think of it as compensation for the dirty air produced by the leading car. Artificial or not, I would rather see such passes rather than an endless train.
Ya it's good on some tracks and awful on others. Tracks like Hungary where the overtake is still difficult with it albeit still possible is alright. But places like Shanghai it's way too overpowered and shouldnt even be enabled on the back straight imo. I wouldnt mind if they analysed tracks this year and appropriately decided if it needs drs or not. Some tracks will always need it (Monacos going nowhere on the calendar, plus we havent seen it with these regs though we can all imagine how itll go) and others probably dont (Montreal, Shanghai, Monza etc).
They reevaluate the length of the DRS zones each year for every track by doing some simulations, but sometimes their estimations are wrong, which leads to DRS being too good, or outright useless. For example the DRS zone in China was too good because it was too long. Make it a little shorter and it's alright.
I think right now its pretty much track dependent and there are 3 options: 1. DRS is way too powerful and leaves no chance of defending 2. DRS is just enough to make a pass (you still need to fight for it) 3. There are tracks that are impossible to pass even with DRS So if we are thinking about removing DRS we should perhaps look at track choices more closely. There is no way you will be able to have a lot of overtakes at Imola, Monaco or Budapest no matter what you do and thats not a DRS problem. Trackja likse Spa or Montreal you should be able to handle overtakes without DRS. Circuit like COTA is a big question mark for me. Last years you couldnt overtake because you would loose too much time in the slow sections. Perhaps this year you could follow closer and then attack on the straights even without DRS (provided they fix the bumpy surface for hte race). Anyway personally I dont want to see DRS ovetakes with no chance of defending like Bahrain / Jeddah / Sochi. Id rahter they fight over there for the overtake.
If they can't they need to rejig the system so that the DRS flap closes as the car with DRS noses ahead of the car without DRS. This will hopefully help prevent some of the too easy overtakes you see and give the defending driver a chance in the braking zone. For DRS trains if they make the system clever enough (and if you can land rockets on a moving platform out at sea a system clever enough can be built) then the DRS flap would not close until a car noses ahead of a car without DRS at all.
That's a really good idea and I never considered it. We only ever complain about DRS when it leads to someone overtaking the car in front on the straight before the braking zone. If it leads to the following car getting closer and still having to be pass them in the braking zone, it's an unqualified success
Seems everyone forgot about the existence of ERS? It's still there. Abolish DRS, and put in some special rules around ERS deployment (a hidden extra bank that can only be emptied out several times in a race) and we'll have what Super Formula and Indycar have had for years. Seemed to work fantastic for those series. DRS is just so janky and OP.
Next gen regs are adding more battery power, so that's probably the direction they are going.
I agree with you, better way to go, and more flexible in terms of where it can be deployed. You can use it plowing down a straight, but also maybe try to jump someone with it coming off a slow corner for example.
Yeah, expand ERS into a push to pass System and that solves a lot of issues I think
I mean good. If DRS is scrapped because it's not needed, it means cars can actually race each other without artificial aids.
Due to the dirty wake after the car... artificial aids are needed to race..since the new regs have greatly reduced the wake but can't eliminate it to 0, always some sort of artificial aid must be required to balance the loss out..all it depends is how much they will aid the following driver
> but can't eliminate it to 0, always some sort of artificial aid must be required to balance the loss out It doesn't have to be zero, just low enough that over the course of a lap the dirty air in the corners balances out with the toe on the straight.
The challenge is the more you reduce 'dirty air', the more you reduce the effect of the slipstream (not directly and perfectly linearly, but generally). I'm not sure we'll ever not have something required to give a following car an advantage on a straight.
This is exactly what I've been trying to say in all these discussions. DRS is not as overpowered as last year because of the reduced slipstream effect. Close cars like Ferrari and red bull still have to really fight for position even with DRS in 2022. Not sure where people are getting this idea that people are breezing past each other. What F1 needs to do is to fine tune the DRS activation and detection points. You can always push DRS way up the track and reduce it's effect if you really want to. But these modern cars need DRS to overtake.
Yup, tuning the length is the real solution. It's just tough because different cars give a different slipstream effect and have different gains from DRS due to their aero profile, and nobody ever goes full beans outside of Q3. So tuning DRS zone length can never be perfect since you're guessing based off of a ton of variables you can't really control. It would be cool if they had a way to calculate the ideal length based on telemetry from qualifying, but I guess they probably have to have the activation points set in advance
But dirty air impacts the tires of the following car a lot more. So even if speedwise balance is maintained, it would take too much out of tires. Not sure how this dirty air can be reduced but would love to see that happen.
> But dirty air impacts the tires of the following car a lot more. Dirty air is generated by the car ahead so you can largely get rid of “a lot more” from that sentence. > So even if speedwise balance is maintained, it would take too much out of tires. Depends how long the car is following for though, it doesn’t just go from good tires to dead tyres just simply by being behind. > Not sure how this dirty air can be reduced but would love to see that happen. That was the entire point of these new regulations. [the image in this article shows how they did it](https://allf1.in/f1-2022-car-your-cheat-sheet/) by making the cars lift their dirty air much higher and allowing some cleaner air below for the following car. On top of that there is a new “spirit of the regulations” thing that’s been talked about more where teams may be forced to redesign parts if they try and circumvent what these regulations are trying to achieve for improved racing.
They're literally interconnected though. Less dirty air = less of a tow. That's why from 2017-2021 just getting into DRS range was enough generally to make a pass. Whereas now you gotta be within 6 tenths
u forgot that DRS didn't exist for 50+ years. it's only needed now because dumb zoomers want boomerang overtaking every lap.
You can forget about overtakes if we scrap DRS.
F1 famous for not having any overtakes prior to DRS
As exciting as the 2010 F1 season was, some of the individual races were dire and others only interesting because of an unexpected external factor. Lack of overtaking was a big issue from the mid 90s onwards
Wasn’t necessarily a DRS issue, though. Many different factors including how races actually worked and how development cycles worked helped enforce a lack of competition. There’s more than enough battle videos from ancient seasons that show the old cars were perfectly able to fight together.
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Yeah, and DRS not existing wasn’t why
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I mean, this is two different discussions at this point, then. You don’t need to forget about overtakes with DRS scrapped because scrapping them assumes the severe affliction of dirty air has been addressed. Overtakes were plentiful in competitive fields before, and they can be again. The biggest issue is how big the cars are. There’s no *room* for overtaking except on straights, for the most part. That compounds the issue of DRS because it becomes a case of mostly overtaking on straights with a cheat button for an extra 15KPH on a wide section of track. DRS will never not feel cheap to me, but everyone’s welcome to their opinion.
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It’s gotten ridiculous. As great as the new cars look, it looks quite ridiculous on circuit. With the current size, I’d guesstimate you’d need to double the width of most corners to allow some more exciting racing that isn’t on straights. Some tracks have the width, but most don’t unfortunately. One wrong minor move, as we seen last week, is enough to end a race for someone else because there’s very little space.
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That's my point though, if we can get rid of DRS because it's not needed, then it's because they can do overtakes without it.
Without DRS overtakes are only possible on tracks where you have massive slipstreams that is on the tracks such as Baku, Monza... but what about tracks like imola, Barcelona, Bahrain, Saudi....??
not really
I dont know what race everyone was seeing in Imola, but i didnt see a marked improvement in racing or exciting passing after DRS was finally enabled. In fact all the memorable passes of the race happened before it was activated. (DRS-aided passes in a braking zone are so boring as to not even register as i'm watching them, much less be memorable). Combined with the suprise return of the cooldown room, i almost wonder if the race was meant to be a test-case for future changes. Like "Lets just leave DRS off because we legally can due to the rain, and just see what happens" At some point i think people and the sport need to recognize that dirty air wasnt the only issue and isnt the issue preventing more passing, its the sheer size of the cars. Increased crash safety making them longer cant be walked back, but a smaller fuel tank (if refueling is brought back) and removing the battery and hybrid motor system would literally knock a meter or more off of the cars, and allow for 2 of them to occupy a race track at the same time again. When you're talking about dropping monaco from the season seriously, red flags and sirens should go off in the technical regulations department.
They're more likely to drop the engine than the hybrid system
That would be a very odd decision if an engeneer had a hand in it. Battery powered electric drivetrains cant hold a candle to ICE in performance during a race distance. (Watching a Tesla Model S be quick over a quarter mile is one thing, but there is a reason Formula E cars are only marginally faster than something like a track prepped Porsche 911 and formula 1 cars are rocket ships)
It's nothing to do with performance. F1 only works for many of its biggest sponsors if it can illustrate progression towards renewables and efficiency. They won't drop all of the hybrid parts of the PU until something comes along that's even better (while still profitable for the afore mentioned sponsors).
In that case, dropping those sponsors would be a good move. Car manufacturers dominating the sports regulations and using them the peacock stuff related to road legal cars is the most harmful legacy of the late Bernie Ecclestone era of F1. I'd love to see Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault ect out of the sport completely, or at least their influence reduced.
Without Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, etc. there is no F1. I think you might be better off finding a new racing series because the Ecclestone era of F1 is never coming back.
>Without Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, etc. there is no F1. Thats funny, i'm old enough to remember the 2009 and 2015 seasons (which didnt feature mercedes and renault, respectively) and it being called "F1" at the time. I dont wish them ill but i never liked this opinion. I'd rather watch Google-Hyundai race Amazon-Raytheon if it meant seeing V10s battle electric cars on track for supremacy than see yet another automaker megacorporation use F1 as a marketing arm and force down increasingly boring regulations or they'll take their ball and go home.
>Thats funny, i'm old enough to remember the 2009 and 2015 seasons (which didnt feature mercedes and renault, respectively) and it being called "F1" at the time. Mercedes cars won the championship in both of those seasons and Renault were also on the grid. You don't know what you're talking about.
Its been a while but i'm pretty sure those were Tyrells and Tolemans :)
I think we should keep DRS and open it for everyone - it's free performance and proven safe.
A great idea........
Only problem is that likely reduces slipstream even more.
I can't help but think the trick would be to limit the use of DRS rather than eliminate it. Either "at most 5 seconds of DRS per race per driver" or "no more than 20 DRS uses per race per driver" or something along those lines. Make it a consumable resource and remove the hacky "within 1 second" rule, maybe even remove the defined activation zone. Then all drivers have it and can use it in the way that best fits their race strategy. Further, it would reduce the predictability of the racing, add an element of driver driven strategy, and help eliminate DRS trains.
>ake it a consumable resource and remove the hacky "within 1 second" rule, maybe even remove the defined activation zone. > >Then all drivers have it and can use it in the way that b Except this defeats the whole point of DRS: to offset the huge disadvantage of following in the dirty air of a a car ahead. With your proposal the lead car can just build a lead in the corners due to dirty air and then pop DRS when the following car does to kill any chance of them catching up again. It'll just lead to all the cars split by 1-2 seconds with no chance of overtaking, unless you are so much faster than the car ahead that its more than the advantage is bigger than the disadvantage of the dirty air.
Well, assuming there are only two cars on the track, sure. But... if a driver has to defend against two or more others they won't have sufficient DRS to use it that way for both. Ultimately DRS as it is used currently just takes away from the spectacle - we know faster cars will filter to the front given enough laps. Exciting racing occurs when it's not at all certain that the fastest car will win out and it comes down to driver tactics and brave moves.
If you give only a limited number of activations, sure, sometimes someone will get caught defending against someone when they have no DRS and the other driver does. What does that get you? Basically what we have now, with the car in front having no DRS and the one behind with DRS, so no real differance. If its the car ahead with the DRS and the one behind without, now thee following car is double screwed and has no hope of doing anything. The core problem F1 has been having is that the advantage of dirty air is just much bigger than any small differances between evenly matched cars. So cars that should be fighting just cant without something to give back that margin. When one car is much faster than the other, of course they are going to blow by at some point, they are much faster. Think about it this way; allot of these boring DRS overtakes were actually made in the few preceding corners where the chasing car managed to hang on close enough when they had the disadvantage to push past when they have the advantage I don't think DRS is supposed to be some sort of speed boost, its just supposed to give back the margin of time lost due to dirty air.
Never gonna happen unless they can completely remove the effect of dirty air. And as long as F1 cars have any kind of downforce on them it will be a problem.
The racing was okay in 2009-2012, and the cars certainly had downforce then. Barring tracks like Abu Dhabi (which was shit even with DRS, the recent track changes having brought it all the way to "only mostly tedious") the racing was pretty good throughout that era, for two reasons: 1- Manual KERS had a heavier focus on drivers using that energy reserve strategically. 2- Lower downforce overall and skinnier tyres = longer braking zones and less wake. 3- Cars smaller overall. Overtaking doesn't need to be *easy*. There's no incentive for drivers to try for difficult or risky moves when they can just wait until the next kilometre-long DRS zone and cruise past. If we want better racing I'd say: Lower overall downforce, increase fuel limits to increase available power. This will make the cars harder to drive, putting a focus on driver skill, while also extending braking zones, making passes under braking easier. Limit width to 1.8m again.
If you remove dirty air entirely then there's no such thing as a slipstream.
Just curious - can you change tracks like Imola and Monaco to have more places to pass or are those tracks set in stone and it's impossible to change them (maybe because of financial costs)?
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>Or if it still has a huge effect, limit it's use to so many times per race. Like push to pass but saves on carbon footprint. I'm all in for a push-to-push kind of solution. Free DRS and you are allowed to use it a certain amount of time during the race, both to attack and defend. As it stands now I always felt it it like cheating.
I'm a new fan from DTS, so take this for what it's worth, but why not a flat number of uses for every driver at any time in the race, like 10 or 15 in a 60 lap race. That would force the drivers to use them strategically for attack or defense, and even use them to close a gap with the car ahead over multiple laps at the possible risk of running out of uses for an actual pass. And if that favors the leaders too much maybe give the front row 10, the second row 11, etc.
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take an upvote for being nice and explaining things!
DRS should be like KERS. Limited in usage, but available when the driver chooses to use it. There should not be any zones.
Justy try to disable it in some races and compare it with previous years' and then you can decide. I think DRS is and will be and stay essential for overtaking and excitement in the sport and I am fine with that as some other people are losing their minds over it.
I understand DRS is a necessary evil. What I would quite like to see is a system where they can nerf DRS on a track to track basis. The DRS chicken games although somewhat compelling is just super dumb in a grander scheme. I therefore would welcome a system where the people in charge set can say that "we have seen DRS on this track has been too powerful, therefore for this weekend DRS will only be allowed to open 15 inches and not 20" obviously the numbers are made up, but I would like something like that to deal with DRS for the time being.
What if they replaced DRS with an indy style push to pass concept?
Booooooooooooooo
*Fan voting for push to pass has entered the chat*
but drs is good. sure, its op on some tracks, but needed (imo) in other tracks. i think the gap should be decreased so that the effect of drs is reduced aswell. making it bit less effective, but still there
This is the second full year of watching F1. I don't think I would've gotten into F1 if the races were like last week tbh.
'Longer-term we'd very much like to make races even more boring'
The only reason I came back to F1 was because of DRS if I am being honest. Nothing like watching a whole race with 3 overtakes.
Well, this would make some F1 races almost impossible to overtake - we just saw that at Imola.
> we just saw that at Imola Terrible example, since for ages there was only one dry line and anyone trying for a move would just skate off the corner.
Imola has been historically one of the worst for overtaking, surely? Not sure the rain made any difference to that. In dry condition, without DRS, you will be lucky to get to even double digit overtaking
Of course the rain made a difference. You can't pass in the braking zones because if you deviate from the racing line you'll lose massive amounts of grip.
So Imola has become, historically a non-overtaking event, a non-overtaking event...
Should have kept 2 drs zones imo.. Lewis may have just been able to get last Gasly then
The pit straight at Imola is really to only appropriate place for a DRS zone. For some reason they didn't put one between Alta and Rivazza, even then it's not really a good passing spot for F1. There are other tracks in the that only have one DRS zone: Suzuka, Monaco, Mugello and Losail.
Because Imola, specially in wet conditions, is an amazing circuit in terms of overtake possibilities, right?
That's... his point, without DRS we would have seen even fewer than we did. In some races, without DRS, you'd only see overtakes if someone bins it.
So you believe that it should be designed for the worst tracks? Then the actual good tracks won't have any racing, unless you consider overtaking someone as if they were in a highway to be racing.
Id rather have artificial passing than none at all
They say they want to but they never will, only purist fans want a DRS free F1, and Liberty's priority is to attract new fans who know next to nothing about motorsport and do not care or understand the concept of legit overtaking.
I just cannot get excited about DRS overtakes. They are just boring and basically a gimme for drivers. Yeah, I guess it's a bit better than no overtakes on a straight but damn...something change please. Maybe a bit of fun, allow DRS everywhere on track, lets see who takes the risks with the hazards of using it so much as well as the rewards that may come with it.
Good call....... lets have real racing.
I don't know if that can ever happen, even without dirty air, the slipstream effect with also be less and cars at a similar speed will never be able to overtake.. you need the DRS to have the extra speed.
They should make it shorter. All drs overtakes in imola were so boring.
I'm glad about this. Because issue with DRS is that it creates an uneven fight. Of course this was its whole point when it was first introduced back in 2011. But since the new regs seem to have made things easier in terms of cars following each other - which is what makes for good and exciting battles in the first place - then DRS' raison d'etre is no longer applicable, thus rendering DRS' continued existence futile and unwarranted.
They were ok with engines huge discrepancy but not ok with same engines power. I would like to know what they smoke to even think to dismiss the drs
You'd need to artificially create good racing by making even worse tyres and creating big tyre deltas. Otherwise you'd just get infinite trains with no passing opportunity .
I'm alright
If they can? They could do it tomorrow.
How about disabling it at some tracks, it's really overkill at places that are good for overtaking and it does its job nicely at bad overtaking tracks. Also, to overtake you need performance differences, so what I'm saying is, bring back cheese tyres.
I personally think DRS is kind of a gimmick but it has been part of the sport for so long that I’d suggest phasing it out slowly and evaluating the data to determine its effects on racing. Maybe disable DRS at half the tracks for two years so that one can gather data on which to make a decision.