limited DRS or radar DRS solution?

[fiohaa]

i like DRS. but i think its too overpowered. The art of defense is pretty much dead in F1, unless by a sheer coiincidence the track conditions all line up, the two cars battling are on similar tyre wear, the defending car has good top speed, and all the stars align, then you get some kind of ability to defend - or you have to max verstappen it.

however - turbulence was obviously an unintended consequence of the aero era, completely out of the drivers control, and this difficulty of running close to a car infront neutralising a major aspect of motor racing..... and sticking on degradable pirelli tyres didn't help matters.

So why can't they make a DRS which uses GPS or some kind of radar that can detect the speed differential to the car infront - and if its over say, I don't know, 10kph, it automatically shuts the flap again. So it's powerful enough to overcome the wake and allow the attacking car to get into the slipstream out of the corner and launch an attack, but not so effective that the he can continue using that massive speed difference and simply drive past the car infront like he's on the motorway.

then you wouldn't have to worry about length of DRS zones, placement of the zones, where the DRS line should be placed, etc..etc...it wouldn't matter as much as it does now.

and the second condition would be - once the car is within say 2 metres of the car infront, having used the DRS to overcome the turbulence, the flap also shuts.

i'm not sure how it would work, either using location or radar i guess... but could this be a simple solution and implemented easily? would it not fix pretty much.......the single biggest problem with F1?

[flynfrog]

Just get rid of it, here watch 10 minutes or racing without it. Those drivers earned those passes it took more skill than getting within 1 second open the flap on the strait and drive by. We get more passes with DRS but they are cheap and boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVoScgNlPNA

[fiohaa]

Facepalm.
Anyone else ?

[cmF1]

Dump DRS and go back to using skill instead of buttons to overtake.

[roon]

Sounds unsafe to have the flap opening and closing out of the driver's control while the drivers are in such close proximity to each other.

Quantify passing and overtaking trends over the years and I'll be able to comment on whether artificial passing methods are necessary, and then speculate on how to design them.

[bhall II]

Done.


via cliptheapex.com

[roon]

Nice, thanks. I wonder what that curve would look like if the x-axis stretched back to the early days of F1.

[skoop]

Keep drs, just allow the drivers to use it all the time

[Juzh]

Just get rid of it, here watch 10 minutes or racing without it. Those drivers earned those passes it took more skill than getting within 1 second open the flap on the strait and drive by. We get more passes with DRS but they are cheap and boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVoScgNlPNA

Cherry picking hard with this clip. When Ves was seconds a lap quicker than anyone else in brazil last year he also didn't need drs to overtake entire field, did he?

[cmF1]

Just get rid of it, here watch 10 minutes or racing without it. Those drivers earned those passes it took more skill than getting within 1 second open the flap on the strait and drive by. We get more passes with DRS but they are cheap and boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVoScgNlPNA

Cherry picking hard with this clip. When Ves was seconds a lap quicker than anyone else in brazil last year he also didn't need drs to overtake entire field, did he?

He just needed a soaking wet track and balls of steel.

[APvortex723]

DRS needs to go, but other things would need to change to keep overtaking up. If it stays, I agree with skoop and keep it available all the time. Would be interesting to see some drivers try to keep it open in some of the faster corners vs other drivers. Only issue is if you close it at the wrong time you can stall the wing and lose the rear end which could be disaster in some areas, or opening too early.

[Cold Fussion]

Just get rid of it, here watch 10 minutes or racing without it. Those drivers earned those passes it took more skill than getting within 1 second open the flap on the strait and drive by. We get more passes with DRS but they are cheap and boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVoScgNlPNA

For every time something like this happened, there is probably 10 other cases where Truli doesn't crash and there is a big long train behind him. I dislike DRS as well but we mustn't look back on the mid 2000s with rose tinted glasses because almost all of the races were decided around the 3 laps around each pit-stop and with very little on-track action.

[APvortex723]

Drs has changed more than just an easy pass in the zone. It changes the drivers mentality and strategy. Basically to just sit behind till the zone for the easy pass, thus less overtakes elsewhere. Also means that the defending car needs to be aware of this. Similar to Hamilton at the last race last year. Brought the pace way down then made sure to get a gap before drs.

Question comes down to wanting more frequent but boring overtakes or fewer but better overtakes.

[Wass85]

They are doing it the wrong way around. Instead of gaining DRS when within a second of the car in front all cars should be allowed to use DRS until they are within one second of the car in front, after that it's down to the driver.

[Moose]

There's a fallacy being used as an axiom here - that more overtakes per GP are better.

F1 was exciting in the days when you didn't know if someone was going to be able to get past or not . The lack of knowledge was exactly what built tension, and excitement.

When you have a high overtakes-per-GP count, that implies that the lack of knowledge is to some extent gone - you can basically guarantee that if someone comes up behind, and is ~1s a lap faster, they'll pass successfully.