Should DRS be removed from Formula 1?

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Should DRS go_.jpg

What are your thoughts on DRS?

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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?
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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!

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Comments

MoerasGrizzly
Premium
Bram Hengeveld said:
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.
Click to expand...
F1 in the 80s would nowadays be considered pretty boring. Take a look at, for instance, the 1984 Formula 1 championship. It's generally considered to be one of the most competetive, and Niki Lauda won it by half a point (Incidentally, by using a V6Turbo). However...

Look at the standings, and look at the individual race reports: It's extremely rare for 10 cars to even finish the race at all, and at no point do more then 5 cars even finish the race on the lead lap. So yes, there was plenty of overtaking in the 80s, but the vast majority was people passing lapped cars :p

Comparatively, the 2020 and 2021 seasons of F1 are far more competetive: Cars being lapped are the exception. In the 1984 Imola GP, there's a three lap difference between first and nine (the rest didn't classify). In the 2020 Imola GP, the gap between 1 and 9 is 22 seconds.

In 2022, we had two races, and in those two races, the podium finished within 10 seconds of one another. In 1984, there are only four races in the entire season where the top 2 drivers finish within 10 seconds of one another. It's obviously too early to tell since we have a long year ahead of us, but 2022 really doesn't have a high bar to clear compared to what was considered the pinnacle of 80s F1.
 
BillyBobSenna
Premium
David Jessat said:
Damn...I hope you're joking...:roflmao:

I think DRS should do nothing more than compensate for what you lose while following through corners and then emulate effektive slipstream - and get disabled once you pull out of that to overtake.
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After each race, we need to have a judging panel like American Idol. After the judges comments, the phone lines open for people call to vote. Before the next race, F1 announces the amount of fanboost each driver should get.
 
Richard Wilks
MoerasGrizzly said:
F1 in the 80s would nowadays be considered pretty boring. Take a look at, for instance, the 1984 Formula 1 championship. It's generally considered to be one of the most competetive, and Niki Lauda won it by half a point (Incidentally, by using a V6Turbo). However...

Look at the standings, and look at the individual race reports: It's extremely rare for 10 cars to even finish the race at all, and at no point do more then 5 cars even finish the race on the lead lap. So yes, there was plenty of overtaking in the 80s, but the vast majority was people passing lapped cars :p

Comparatively, the 2020 and 2021 seasons of F1 are far more competetive: Cars being lapped are the exception. In the 1984 Imola GP, there's a three lap difference between first and nine (the rest didn't classify). In the 2020 Imola GP, the gap between 1 and 9 is 22 seconds.

In 2022, we had two races, and in those two races, the podium finished within 10 seconds of one another. In 1984, there are only four races in the entire season where the top 2 drivers finish within 10 seconds of one another. It's obviously too early to tell since we have a long year ahead of us, but 2022 really doesn't have a high bar to clear compared to what was considered the pinnacle of 80s F1.
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I get tired of hearing these sort of arguments.


Tell me, at Saudi Arabia, where did the rest of the field finish apart from the first 2? Can you even remember?

You do realize that more overtakes is not equal to a better race, or championship. If that was the case, F1 would have closed shop a long time ago, and we would be watching Oval plate racing only.

Nobody cares about field spread, if the same guys are always winning, Which has been the case for F1 for the past 10 year, DRS or no DRS. Mazepin finishing 1 lap, or 4 laps behind is totally irrelevant.

1984 was also a year dominated by one team. Hardly the best example of the 80s. Why you dont compare it with 1982 for example?...
 
Simon Gardner
There is still probably a need for something whether that is DRS with some tweaking to how and where it can be used or some sort of limited use push to pass which can be used by the defending driver as well as the car chasing. That way there is still potential for battles that are hard fought and last longer than one straight.
There are times when DRS has contributed to a good race that other wise would have been processional but often the over takes are too easy - when you fly past and gain the position before getting to the braking zone that isn't entertaining. Some tracks such as Montreal and on the Kemmel straight at Spa its just too much and the distance where DRS is used should maybe be reduced.
 
S
It's been TWO RACES. With the biggest rule changes in F1 history. I've never especially been a fan of DRS but it's way to early to say the new rules have fixed it and it can go.

Review it after the season and see where we're at.
 
S
Richard Wilks said:
You do realize that more overtakes is not equal to a better race
Click to expand...

I agree with this entirely. I'd much rather see, say, five good overtakes in an F1 race than like NASCAR where they're utterly meaningless they're so common.

It's like football. I've seen 0-0 draws that were exciting, and 5-4 bonanzas that were dull.
 
NtsParadize
Colt459 said:
Yes it is naturally unfair that your car slows down your opponents car.

Why should you have to be two seconds faster per lap just to fight off the front cars airflow to execute a pass?
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Nature isn't unfair, it's nature
 
David Jessat
BillyBobSenna said:
After each race, we need to have a judging panel like American Idol. After the judges comments, the phone lines open for people call to vote. Before the next race, F1 announces the amount of fanboost each driver should get.
Click to expand...
Ameri-what? Sorry, don't really watch TV.

I'm more for that ancient Clarkson idea of him sitting up above it all and awarding points based on how many rules they ignore. Who cares about fans anyway, I think simracing is a plot to get them away from it so they don't mess up the marketing with opinions...play that game, no need to watch if you can race yourselves!
 
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3
Everyone this is extremely simple come on. DRS was a band aid until the solution came. It's been 12 years and we now have the solution. the 2022 cars. Its time to get rid of it.
 
ChaosZeroJK
Richard Wilks said:
I agree with almost everything you said, except this bit : ". So adding more DRS zones is just a stupid attempt at fixing a problem that is caused by the natural evolution of technology."

Almost nothing in racing is a natural evolution of technology, but rather of regulations.

People dont seem to understand this, which is why whenever i say that the aero parts of the car should almost be spec at this point, is met with so much disaproval and arguments of "what about evolution?" Well almost everything in an F1 car is already regulated to be worse from what we could actually do given more freedom. Everything. So this argument makes no sense.

The only reason why this doesnt happen is because F1 teams are now basically corporations with hundreds of workers, many working on Wind tunnels or CFDs that cost millions, so now F1 is a "too big to fail" economy, and they dont want to let any of that go.
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I used the expression "evolution of technology" because at the end of the day tech rulebooks are written to regulate the technology being R&D for the sport in question. But at the same time, because the sanctioning body is incapable of closing all the potential loopholes, they turn over to the marketing body and ask them to come up with solutions instead, however dumb they might be.

I think we can all agree that 4 DRS zones in such a relatively short track (which is going to be even faster than before thanks to 2 corners that were cut) are a puzzling decision, but it makes sense in context. However, if you are to go down this route and litter the track with DRS zones to increase the spectacle, might as well let people use DRS wherever they want and just put a cap on maximum amount of time you can use it during a race, like it happens in Indycar with P2P.

Yes, this is a dumb suggestion. But water is wet, as this is how contemporary F1 is.
 
mantasisg
Dr. Death said:
Change it. Formula 1 is all about evolution. Remove all DRS restrictions, let cars have active aero on all times, i dream of how they will look and drive like that.
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I have been working on physics for Chaparral 2F, it had rear and front flaps system, so it could have relatively high top speed, while also great grip for braking, cornering and accelerating. They used torque converter and didn't need clutch, so they used clutch pedal for controlling flaps.

I can say that it is great fun to drive it fast. For car like that the switch between downforce and low-drag mode is very bold. You basically drive two different cars at same race, same lap. The extra grip you gain for braking due to increased grip and added aero drag is huge. Cornering is much quicker, of course. And when you "turn-off" downforce once you feel like speed is high enough/wheelspin is almost gone, then it gives boost of acceleration.

The downside is that if system fails in braking it might end in much too little room to decelerate. RL Chaparral probably could have dominated 1967 WSC. But reliability wasn't there.

Today it would be a lot different, because there is a lot of under body aerodynamics which doesn't induce significant drag. So "external" aero devices wouldn't result in such dramatic change of aero, although it depends... But knowing F1, they always like differences to be marginal, and it sucks as that is why they seem so artificial and programmed.
 
BBRacing
Why would you want to remove it? Sometimes the 6 are within a couple of tenths so over taking will only be possible in front 2 rows cars, if they are behind for some reason lol
 
A
No DRS : you have a better car, a better driving, you overtake. If not, stay behind.

Tires should not wear that fast, and more importantly, should not leave so many marbles everywhere, forbidding follower to use alternative racing lines and try to overtake.
Also regarding the tires, why can't they last the full duration/distance of a race ? Typical car go 20000 to 40000 km, if not more, on the same set. I know, not with the same grip or performance. So what ? One specification, that's all, everybody would have the same chances.
No more pit stops too : I hate seeing a race leader swap just because he pitted earlier, or later. What about racing ?

Aero seems to go in the correct direction this year, but this is not enough, dirty air is still a thing.
 
delpinsky
I don't know, a Formula 1 without overtakings is so bad, but when overtaking is so easy, I don't like it either. So let's reduce to 50% the wings opening. Otherwise let's the keep wings open and let's use some BOP.
 
blekenbleu
Premium
Michael Payne said:
How about using the Push to Pass like in Indy Car and limit the number of times it can be used in a race.
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Indy car is a spec series, cars will always be close in performance, depending on setups and drivers.
F1 is a formula, where teams can demonstrably build quite different cars that are unlikely to be so nearly matched as Indy Cars, which makes F1 interesting for different reasons
but needs more drastic tricks for close racing.
 

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