Should DRS be removed from Formula 1?

Article Discussion
Should DRS go_.jpg

What are your thoughts on DRS?

  • Total voters
    801
With two races out of the way, we have experienced the new 2022 regulations and how the cars race. Should the Drag Reduction System (DRS) be removed from Formula 1 or be kept?

The 2022 regulations were a massive overhaul of the car regulations. The 2022 regulations which were originally slated for 2021 but were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and have one major principle to allow cars to race closer.

With previous regulations, a following car would lose 35% of their downforce when racing within 20 metres of the car ahead. That loss of downforce could increase to 47% if the following car got within 10 metres of the car ahead.

The new regulations are meant to reduce the downforce lost and from what we have seen so far, the new regulations appear to work.

So now that we know cars are able to drive closer to each other, should we remove DRS?

Drag Reduction System (DRS) was introduced to F1 in 2011. DRS was implemented as a tool to allow cars to overtake. It is essentially an adjustable rear wing that is operated by the driver. DRS has strict conditions where the racing conditions must be safe and the pursuing car must be within a one second gap of the car in front as it crosses the DRS detection zone.

When it was introduced, it was met with a mixed reaction. Some thought it to be the solution to a lack of overtaking, whilst others thought it made overtaking too easy. Now that we appear to have cars that can drive closer to each other, surely this makes overtaking even easier?

Bahrain 2022​

During the first race of the season, we saw Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen battling for the lead - before Max had to retire. During this race we appeared to see the immense advantage Max had over Charles along the start/finish straight. At times, Max was just within the one second gap that is required to activate DRS, yet was able to get to T1 first. However, DRS wasn’t quite as powerful as it first appeared here. After the race Charles Leclerc stated that he allowed Max to close the gap along the start/finish straight, so that he had DRS immediately after - which allowed him to hold onto the lead.

Bahrain DRS.jpg


Saudi Arabia 2022​

The second race of the season was at Jeddah and this is where we say a very peculiar thing indeed. Whilst battling for the lead, we saw Charles and Max both hit the brakes hard before entering the DRS detection zone for the start/finish straight. It would appear that whoever entered the final corner first would be at a massive disadvantage and could be easily overtaken. So the result saw both drivers braking heavily, trying to be the second car to enter the final corner. But, this race was more than just the DRS zones, it showed how well these cars can follow each other. Both the Ferrari and Red Bull were able to follow each other closely through most of the lap, which was not so easy in 2021 with the previous F1 regulations.

Jeddah DRS.jpg


Calls for a change to DRS​

Many fans have started to call for a change to the DRS rules and those calls for a change could be amplified further with this week’s race at Albert Park. The Australian GP has an unprecedented 4 DRS zones, one along the main straight, another between turns 2 and 3, the third between turns 8 and 9, and the fourth between turns 10 and 11.

Australia DRS.jpg


Here are our thoughts on some potential options for 2022.

Remove DRS completely. If DRS were to be removed completely, then there will be one certainty - less overtaking. DRS is there to help overtaking, so completely removing it will have an impact on the amount of overtakes that are seen during a race. Also, removing DRS will expose how well the F1 2022 regulation cars actually follow each other. There is also the cost to take into account as each team has a budget cap.

If DRS were to be removed, the rear wings may have to keep the DRS function for the remainder of the season. It also may not be as simple as removing the adjustable flap, as these wings will most definitely have been designed to optimise DRS in some way and so may need a complete redesign.
  • Pros - Real overtaking
  • Cons - Less overtaking and potential cost implication
Restrict the use of DRS. The main disadvantage of DRS is that it gives the driver behind an advantage over the driver ahead. However, this could be eradicated if the DRS detection zones were removed and drivers were allowed to use DRS whenever they liked - still with designated DRS zones. This would provide the driver ahead to have a way to defend from an overtaking car. It could also be used by drivers who are attempting to complete an over or undercut, by using DRS to put in a fast lap whilst other drivers are pitting.

The caveat to this is that there would be a limited number of times any one driver could activate DRS during a race.
  • Pros - allows driver ahead to defend and tactical use of DRS
  • Cons - still doesn’t address DRS being potentially overpowered
Leave it as it is. Whilst we are only two races into the season, removing DRS or changing the way it is utilised could be potentially unfair. There were 77 overtakes in Bahrain and 33 overtakes in Saudi Arabia - the majority of these overtakes would have been with the aid of DRS. This means that DRS is already a factor to the amount of points certain drivers have been rewarded and this includes Max Verstappen who may not have won the race at Jeddah without DRS.

Love it or hate it, DRS does provide more opportunities to overtake and without DRS there will be less overtaking. Less overtaking could have an impact on the global audience, especially affecting the audience who have only known F1 with DRS. A result of this could mean an impact on F1 financially - with less fans watching F1 and fewer companies willing to invest in the motorsport.

Finally, leaving DRS as it is allows the FIA to evaluate the entire season and to properly formulate a plan for 2023, if they chose to change DRS in some way in the future.

What are your thoughts about DRS? Should we keep it, change it, or leave it?
  • Like
Reactions: Deena Gold, lpaulocp, Omer Said and 4 others
About author
Damian Reed
Damian Reed
PC geek, gamer, content creator, and passionate sim racer.
I live life a 1/4 mile at a time, it takes me ages to get anywhere!

More in F1 & Motorsport

Comments

moody1500
my main problems with DRS are how strong it is and that you always know when, where and how someone will overtake. But i guess thats just a drawback of the overly big and heavy cars
 
Badwheels
I guess I look at it as, it is allowing the inherent design of the car to be altered during the race to facilitate passing. If moving the wing is allowed to increase performance i.e. the car is not a static configuration, why not allow active suspension? Where is the cut off ?

If they really want the ability of the cars to pass no matter what, create a car and give it to all the teams. Saves money, easily replicated, BOP, engineers hit the bread line and you become BORING.

If the cars can't follow, then it's up to the engineers to figure it out.
 
Colt459
Do the anti-DRS folks realize it only exists because the original “unfair” advantage is from the leading car messing up the air flow behind it.

Perhaps you can trim it down, but to eliminate it artificially prohibits passing since the faster can’t can’t actually be faster when it is trailing.
 
Mekonrider
With F1 is people tend to remember races as being a lot more exciting than they actually were.....DRS or not.

I think the only way to make the series more exciting is to find a way to level up the rest of field, a bit like MotoGP and the top 20 being with 1s of each other in qualifying. I remember when lower tier bikes would be 6s a lap down.

The problem is cars aren't bikes the ways of going faster are tenfold and harder to police. That and those at the top start kicking and screaming when moves get talked about to make things more equal.
 
Antony Snook
I do not have a problem with DRS. When a car corners you need grip that is Downforce espeshaly at the back. This means you can carry speed and momentum into turn. The problem is downforce will destroy top end power on a straight. Lets face it typical tracks are built for motorcycles with short straights and many turns. And the V6 turbo needs DRS to do the job. You can go to big block engines and do away with DRS but the technology will not relate to the road car market that is looking into small engines. Engine manufacturers use F1 as a testing ground for technology that goes into road cars. So DRS is a solution for now. In the future i see front wheels powered by electric motor that can activate at slower speeds and deactivate at faster speeds. As the car goes from 2 to 4 wheel drive. But that is a long way into the future. Then we can do away with DRS. But it is OK for now.
 
Dzul
Premium
I remember watching a lot of A1GP races in which the extra BHP of the 'push-to-pass' button will stimulate drivers to go for daring maneuvers... a particular example was Durban 2006 in which Jos Verstappen (Max's dad for the younglings here ;)) made a similar overtake maneuver, with push-to-pass, both on the sprint race and the feature race. The first time it didn't work and he spun (wrong spot), the second time he got it right and won the race. It's not a guarantee but as a LIMITED aid it can help racing be more exciting. So I think F1 can better replace DRS with P2P if they are afraid to let go of any 'overtaking aids' for the sake of providing 'excitement' to the new crowds. I'm fine if it's gone.

Another option could be to limit the amount of times a driver can activate DRS (like how P2P works) as well as MOVING those detection zones to a more suitable place on track that deters drivers from playing silly games like what Max and Charles did in Saudi Arabia. Maybe it's the detection zone the one causing problems, as much as how much the aid can be used? How about 10 times per race only... See how that goes.
 
Last edited:
Gevatter
Premium
From my shallow understanding of the inner workings of an F1 car (and without reading the thread), I'd suggest the following. Either remove DRS completely, or reduce it to one zone on the track, preferably not the start/finish straight. Instead (if technically possible) introduce a manual boost that is active as long as the driver holds a button on the steering wheel down. This gives the hybrid engine +50 or +100 HP (or something like that), but the energy comes out of the ERS battery and the allowance per lap. This might lead to not being able to use the pre-programmed ERS strategy for the rest of the lap, or even having to switch to harvest mode for some time to refill the battery. The boost is only available in the race and can be used any time, even by the car about to be overtaken to avoid it.
 
mantasisg
Three words: Less Aerodynamic Drag.

You can't boast about being best racecar formula, if you generate more drag than a brick.

So it leaves two choices - have as much effective DRS and use it as much as possible, or ditch DRS but make cars as much aerodynamically efficient as possible. Of course, having DRS allows to have both of both camps.
 
HF2000
Staff
Premium
Maybe I'm wrong but I think the slipstream effect of the F1 cars is significally less than let's say GT cars because they their wake is less and their drag is less. In races GT cars need a slipstream to pass a car that has similar performance (except when the driver in front makes a mistake of course).
So I think without DRS is will be hard to overtake an F1 car with similar performance.
Without DRS Max wouldn't have won the Jeddah Grand Prix, I think.

Personally I would like to have more diversity in the cars like other tyre manifacturers and less regulations so that teams have more variables in setting up a car.
 
Last edited:
Luciano Santos Filho
Colt459 said:
Do the anti-DRS folks realize it only exists because the original “unfair” advantage is from the leading car messing up the air flow behind it.

Perhaps you can trim it down, but to eliminate it artificially prohibits passing since the faster can’t can’t actually be faster when it is trailing.
Click to expand...
The new rules were created to deal with it. If DRS is to be kept, the new rules failed.

DRS is ridiculous, it makes no sense and it's one of the main reasons I can't enjoy F1 as much as I used to.

If they really can't do anything better about it, then at least it should work differently. Maybe it should emulate slipstream better. It should be activated when following the car ahead, and at the moment that the car behind moves from the rear of the car ahead, DRS should be deactivated. OR, AT LEAST, when one car PASSES another, the DRS should be deactivated. Use the DRS to pass another car and then keeping use it to extend the advantage, to the point that the passing car can actually block the car being passed, is nonsense. Use the DRS to pass another car in one DRS zone and then use it again in the next one to increase the advantage is even more nonsense, but we have seen it happen.

But still, it would an artificial way to do something that should happen naturally.
 
Bram Hengeveld
Staff
Premium
The solution is not that hard. We had plenty of overtakes in the 80s:
  • Ditch the powersteering, bring back H-pattern shifters with a clutch and good luck racing around the track with one hand like this boss did back in the days. Catch slides, correct massive oversteer and powerslides and show who really masters his vehicle instead of having a jet on rails that we have today.
  • Reduce the wings and ground effect. Focus more on mechanical grip (setup!) than aero.
  • Let drivers decide how far they wish to open the turbo. Need to overtake? Take the risk to blow up your V10 (or v12 obviously, not a V6 vaccuumcleaner powerunitwhatever) engine and crank up that turbo power!
  • Free pitstop strategies
  • Nobody needs hybrid power-units in F1. I understand it's cool for marketing but no real life driver needs it to race on a circuit. For electrical novelties there are plenty of dedicated series already (ETCR, Formula E).
Result: less aero, more mechanical grip, better sounds, more overtakes. And the fans at home and especially those at the track win.

Alternatively if none of the above works. Ditch all the F1 cars and tech and race with the amazing F2 cars instead. Plenty of action there each race.
 
MoerasGrizzly
Premium
I like the idea of active aero, so I'd say: Keep the DRS zones, but remove the 1-second-behind rule. Just let people open up their wings whenever. It's cool!
 
K
Get rid of DRS. Passing a car by pushing on a button at the beginning of a long straight is not overtaking.

I would replace DRS with something like Push-to-Pass, used in Indycar racing. You can use it anytime you want, but you get a limited amount of time to do so, maybe 100 seconds for the whole race. This introduces a new element of strategy during the race.
 
P
Richard Wilks said:
Indycar doesnt need DRS.

Super Formula doesn't need DRS.

We had cars with as much downforce as these in the 90s and 80s, and they didnt need DRS.

DRS is now a "thing", that started as a knee jerk reaction to Alonso losing the 2010 championship stuck behind petrov. Is a posterchild example of how the FIA is scared of copying other better solutions, or just tell the teams that all the money they wasted on wind tunnels would be useless overnight, if they enforced proper aero rules.

So yes, i think it should go away, together with a revised rules package.
Click to expand...
The problem with current cars compared to 90s and 80s, it's not the amount of downforce generated, it's how effective they are in sealing all laminar airflows behind the car. It's probable that a current F1 car (or let's say from last year) generates as much turbulent air as 30 years ago, but the difference is that 30 years ago, the cars punched a bigger hole in the air, creating such a vacuum that would slingshot the car behind easily. Now the car behind gets all the dirty air and not even half the tow.

Remove draft from the racing, and overtaking moves plummet. Simracing has been a great testbed for this: 10 years ago iRacing was using some aero numbers that neutralized the tow effect in a big manner. It was very hard to get a run on other car and overtake it, even with Miatas where the aero wake effects are virtually non existant. The quality of racing went noticeably down, because you had to resort to bullying your way through as the only tactic possible. It improved again as the tow effect was restored.

It's a common theme in saying that underbody downforce is cleaner and produces better racing that bottom one. But then: did racing really get worse in 1983 when F1 banned shaped floors and teams had to resort to oversized wings to claw downforce back? Footage from the era tends to point otherwise.

I think overtake numbers per race in F1 are available since 1985. There is a steady decline on the stat year after year, all the way down to 2010, before the artificial spike of 2011. Downforce went up and down, power went up and down, mechanical grip went up and down, and overtake numbers didn't stop declining. What changed? IMO, it's the efficiency of designs what remained and kept on improving, with a focus on making airflows stay as well attached to the bodywork as possible, and sealing behind the car as close as possible, for both improving the perfomance of the car itself, and also making it harder for the chasing rival to make a move on it.
 
P
That being said, and back on topic...

For 2022 I would not touch DRS. It needs to be reviewed as they race in more venues and as cars, driving techniques and setups evolve through the season, it's too soon to tell. Yes, I would like having it removed in a blink of an eye. But I think that with the investment made on them, it could stay put on the cars and change the way they use them. I would like to see it transformed into a P2P system, with a number of activations or seconds it can be on, and could be used just like it is at places where overtaking is hard, like Hungaroring, Monaco or Barcelona. That way, investment and development from the teams does not go to waste, and F1 keeps a tool to making racing exciting without becoming too much of a gimmick (which it may be at some places at the moment). With the timing technologies of present day, it shouldn't be too hard to switch how they use it depending of where they are going to race.
 
RichardHessels
Keep DRS but limit the number of times you can use it. Every driver can use it in the DRS zones. Sort of a push to pass, but the aero version.
 

Latest News

Article information

Author
Damian Reed
Article read time
5 min read
Views
20,040
Comments
146
Last update
Join the discussion

Share this article

Are you buying car setups?

  • Yes

  • No

Results are only viewable after voting.
See comments…
Back
Top