Defending position with DRS

[marekk]

If you have a car at your back within < 1s, you probably loose your position on competitor's DRS activation.
But if you let him by, just approaching this measurement line, you have the right to use DRS, and you should be able to overtake.
What do you think about this tactic ?

[WilliamsF1]

[raymondu999]

Sorry, but i fail to see the relevance of the video.

@Marekk - do you mean actually slowing down, so that YOU are 1 second behind?

[gridwalker]

I think that no racing driver who has the determination to get into F1 will be willing to strategically drop a position simply to try and neutralise the DRS ... we don't know how effective the DRS will be yet and the FIA have gone on record to say that they'll tweak the rules to ensure that the active aero will not provide such a large advantage that it will guarantee a pass every time.

Besides, if this tactic proved to be effective, the driver of the following car would also learn to break before the 1s line in order to maintain his advantage on the following straight. This could lead to some farcical action and potentially dangerous situations as 2 cars battle to cross the 1s line in 2nd place.

Think about it for a moment : you are running in clean air and battling to catch up with the pack, then round the last corner and straight into 2 cars that are heavily breaking in an attempt to be the car with an active DRS.

Drivers attempting this kind of tactic should be reprimanded IMHO. Once a driver games the system like this, all drivers will start attempting to do so (neutralising any advantage). Deliberately dropping places to game the DRS regs could easily be defined as "bringing the sport into disrepute" (that reg applies to EVERYTHING) so I wouldn't want to be the first driver to try.

If you think it is a viable tactic, who do you think would be the first driver to try it? IMHO, it'd be a certain German champion ...

[marekk]

Sorry, but i fail to see the relevance of the video.

@Marekk - do you mean actually slowing down, so that YOU are 1 second behind?

slowing down, so that you are 0,2s behind.

[raymondu999]

Actually, talking of unruly tactics, I wonder if anyone will try a brake test, followed by a sprint in an attempt to do a safety-car-restart-style maneuver, hoping to catch the second one off guard so that he's not within 1s

[marekk]

If you think it is a viable tactic, who do you think would be the first driver to try it? IMHO, it'd be a certain German champion ...

+1

Many times drivers strategically drop a position in F1 (and i don't mean Felippe).
And if you feel the car behind you it's going to make it, it's your only line of defense.
Real fun starts if there are more then 2 cars in train

[WilliamsF1]

Sorry, but i fail to see the relevance of the video.

Preventing the driver behind from getting around on the straight is the only way to defend.

Either Schumacher style or Hamilton style, there is a lot of this going to be happening and stewards are going to be busy after the race.


The question i have is how many times does a driver with an active DRS will be allowed to use in a series of laps.
1 sec is not small in f1 and can be as much as 10 car lengths, so will the driver behind be able to use the DRS every lap in his attempt to get within 3-4 car lengths to attempt a pass? or will this be limited to 2-3 consecutive tries?

[marekk]

in track cycling world it looks like this:

[gridwalker]

Many times drivers strategically drop a position in F1

Would you please provide an example of this? Other than obvious team orders and a few occasions where drivers have deliberately released faster cars because defending a position was hurting their laptime (therefore, hurting their tyre/fuel strategy) I cannot think of any comparable situation where a driver may choose to drop a place ... if it is such a common event, I would like to think I could remember one after nearly 25 years of watching the sport!

Care to enlighten me?

[marekk]

occasions where drivers have deliberately released faster cars because defending a position was hurting their laptime (therefore, hurting their tyre/fuel strategy)

i meant that one.

[gridwalker]

Gotcha Marekk ... IMHO, the big difference is that under those circumstances, the driver conceding the place doesn't expect to get it straight back and is genuinely conceding track position.

The only recent example I can think of where a driver decides to concede a place with the expectation of getting it straight back would be in Spa '08 :



And we all know how THAT ended ...

[marekk]

The question i have is how many times does a driver with an active DRS will be allowed to use in a series of laps.
1 sec is not small in f1 and can be as much as 10 car lengths, so will the driver behind be able to use the DRS every lap in his attempt to get within 3-4 car lengths to attempt a pass? or will this be limited to 2-3 consecutive tries?

There is no limit AFAIK.
1 sec gap is probably to big to make DRS overtaking work at all for cars at comparable pace, but if you let the car behind you pass just before gap measurement point, you will be probably just 2-3 tenths behind going into activation area.

[raymondu999]

Or if you time it just right, the other car could be just a front wing ahead. Then you can proceed to butcher the guy on the straight.

[gridwalker]

Hrmmm ... Ray brings up a good point.

The FIA has determined the maximum gap between cars (1s) which needs to be reached before the DRS is enabled, but should there be a minimum gap?

If a car is 0.01s behind "on the line", does it really need the DRS to be activated? Should the system reward a driver who brakes their car just enough for the following driver to stick their nose ahead "on the line"?

Thinking about the possible ramifications, I'm fairly certain that we won't have heard the last of this.