Time to ditch DRS?

[snoop1050]

DRAS could actually add excitment IF
all cars had the same spec 7th gear giving them identical theoritical top speeds.

the DRS would allow the following car to accelerate faster and most likely allow him to get level with the car infront but it would still take balls to achiecve the pass.

as it is now DRS might aswell strap a jet negine onto the car and give it an extra 100mph down the straight.

DRS is no more exicting than sitting next to the motorway and pretending the fast lane is overtaking the slow lane

[Dragonfly]

Sorry if it has been mentioned already.
In Canada MS made a classic overtake move on Kobayashi at the hairpin. But the DRS detection line was there also and Kobayashi without any effort regained the lost position in the DRS zone. MS could do nothing to keep his hardly fought advantage.

[snoop1050]

Sorry if it has been mentioned already.
In Canada MS made a classic overtake move on Kobayashi at the hairpin. But the DRS detection line was there also and Kobayashi without any effort regained the lost position in the DRS zone. MS could do nothing to keep his hardly fought advantage.

and on the next lap when MSC activated DRS to retake kobayashi it got stuck open taking msc out of the race

[smoothisfast]

Alonso earned his spot coming out of the pits on lap 20 in Canada (he passed both Lewis AND Seb by banging out quick laps). That very same lap Lewis caught him in the hairpin, Alonso backed him up and had easily three car lengths on him by the time they hit the DRS detection line. Six seconds after they crossed the activation line, Lewis had 20kph on him and blew by him like he was tied to the ground. Lewis didn't earn that pass. The same would be true if the roles were reversed. THAT is not racing, that's Mario Kart bullshit and DRS needs to be gotten rid of.

So essentially you are saying that Alonso was driving way better than Lewis and Lewis got an undeserved pass with some "mario kart bullshit".
If this is the case, then why didn't Alonso mario-kart him right back with the DRS on the next lap?

here is how to settle it IMHO:

1) Many will agree: a faster car/driver spending taking 20+ laps to finally get around a slower car = LAME. this is especially true if that faster car has a lot of pace to catch a car that's already in front of the slower one. we've all seen this a million times.

2) Many will also agree: non-DRS overtakes are more desirable than DRS overtakes.

The solution is a small change to the current rule. The trailing car must be within 1sec for at least 5 laps. this will pressure them to make some effort at regular overtaking.

in fact, we did see Hamilton try some regular passing before he used the DRS. and knowing he had the DRS option less than a minute away made it seem like he was being to hasty. what a shame i even thought that!

that wouldn't be the case if he had 5 laps before he could use it. vote on this then pass it along to the FIA. end of story.

[Speedster]

We had DRS on the ultra long straight in China and on the longest straight in Canada. In general, the DRS zones are in the places most suited to overtaking.

Why doesn't the FIA create DRS zones in places where currently there is no or very little overtaking? It could make the race more exciting in that part of the track (either by allowing a close overtake instead of no overtake, or allowing the trailing car to catch up, to get in a better position before the next traditional overtaking spot) for the people longing for it and people longing for proper overtakes (not factoring in tyres) will still get what they want too.

[krisfx]

Don't know if this is plausible,

but what about a two stage system, whereby the wing is stalled to a degree for the defending car

and completely stalled for the chasing car?


I like DRS, and the move with Hamilton was on before the DRS line anyway, and you would be a fool if you were to believe that he wouldn't have just had Alonso at some other point in that lap....

[Speedster]

I like DRS, and the move with Hamilton was on before the DRS line anyway, and you would be a fool if you were to believe that he wouldn't have just had Alonso at some other point in that lap....

That's the problem. I'm sure he would've passed Alonso, the pace difference was too big. But we aren't allowed to see it, because the FIA wants "exciting racing".

[krisfx]

I like DRS, and the move with Hamilton was on before the DRS line anyway, and you would be a fool if you were to believe that he wouldn't have just had Alonso at some other point in that lap....

That's the problem. I'm sure he would've passed Alonso, the pace difference was too big. But we aren't allowed to see it, because the FIA wants "exciting racing".

Well yeah, but, Hamilton was along side Alonso before the DRS line, which meant the move was on, which meant DRS didn't make an epic difference...

[beelsebob]

I like DRS, and the move with Hamilton was on before the DRS line anyway, and you would be a fool if you were to believe that he wouldn't have just had Alonso at some other point in that lap....

That's the problem. I'm sure he would've passed Alonso, the pace difference was too big. But we aren't allowed to see it, because the FIA wants "exciting racing".

Well yeah, but, Hamilton was along side Alonso before the DRS line, which meant the move was on, which meant DRS didn't make an epic difference...

I can't complain because I did it too... We're not talking about the pass at the end of the race here. We're talking about the pass on lap 20.

[Richard]

There is more to DRS than the 2012 Canadian GP.

Last year I recall there were a few races when DRS was assistance but not a slam dunk. Then you could see it acting as an equalizer to counter the disadvantage of being behind another car. However, the following driver still needs a faster car and driving skills make the move.

[raymondu999]

The most interesting (note: not necessarily best; interesting) use of it happened, in my opinion, in Nurburgring 2011. The different cars were quicker, and lead the race, at different points. But for the top 3, they were generally within DRS zone of each other. Now the interesting thing is usually, the leader would pull several tenths out in Sectors 1 and 2, before whoever was in P2/P3 suddenly made up just about the same amount of time that they lost, in Sector 3, with the help of DRS. Helped to make a stonking race as people were quicker at different points, but not quick enough to pull away from the DRS.

[spadeflush]

F1 could do without DRS. Overtaking has always been difficult in F1 but in the pre-DRS era, an overtake was appreciated by the fans...DRS has in most of the races made overtaking look too simple. Its boring to see a DRS overtake IMO. This is as far as the "spectacle" is concerned.If at all they want to keep DRS, they should have very short zones where the following car can just about come close to the car ahead. On tracks like Spa, Monza, China, Canada, they could actually not have DRS zones. Cars with a good exit out of corners before the mammoth straights stand a good chance of overtaking without the DRS anyway. Also, unlimited use of DRS in qualifying makes no sense at all. As someone else mentioned above, banning it in qualifying might be a good idea considering the safety implications. Agreed Schumacher's DRS issue was the first of its kind, a one off, but it often takes a one off incident to cause irreparable damage. I dont knw how much the technology cost for each team, cuz that could be a deciding factor on its limited amount of use or ban.

[Ray]

DRS is a failure simply because if 3 drivers are within 1 second of one another, the following two cars have DRS and neither gain enough advantage to pull away from one another. What's the point of encouraging overtaking if the guy in front of you can use DRS too? You basically create a stalemate and if the guy in front has a full KERS charge he can possibly hold them both off. Waste of time, waste of money, not entertaining. Drivers should never have to ask permission to make a pass, they should do it with their talent and the car they are given. Equal playing fields are for spec series, keep that bullshit out of Formula 1. It's numbered "1" for a reason.

The F-duct needs to come back and completely replace DRS. Let the driver decide when he wants to take the risk, and let the teams that think they can do a better job than the next guys build one on their cars. The F-duct could suffer from the same problem of DRS where they are both using it and come to a stalemate, but they wouldn't be restricted to using where the FIA allow them to.

Hell, Mercedes brilliantly interpreted the rules to make an awesome DRS system for their car spending a pretty good chunk of money basically designing their car around it, hasn't done --- for them.

[Ray]

So essentially you are saying that Alonso was driving way better than Lewis and Lewis got an undeserved pass with some "mario kart bullshit".
If this is the case, then why didn't Alonso mario-kart him right back with the DRS on the next lap?

Because you know as well as I do, racing isn't that simple. Please, stay away from the strawman. There was no guarantee that Lewis was going to pass Alonso on lap 20. DRS basically handed it to him on a plate. For the previous three laps, Alonso was quick enough to pass both Vettel AND Lewis in the pitstop cycle, so he clearly was able to do competitive times compared to both of them. He leaves the pits on colder tires and DRS basically hands Lewis a guaranteed pass where there wasn't one. Alonso may be mighty faster in one sector, Lewis in another. We all know that it's quite often difficult to pass in a sector where you are faster simply because the driver in front knows how to beautifully defend his line. Why in the hell would you want to take that away from the driver in front?

Lewis won the race with beautiful driving, and Alonso lost by the rare strategy mistake from Ferrari (this season anyway). Had Lewis not been able to breeze past Alonso on that lap, the outcome of the race would've definitely been affected and may have changed Ferrari's strategy.

[myurr]

I agree with much of your premise, but don't forget that strategy and setup decisions are made based on DRS being available. Otherwise it's better to have track position making a slower one stop strategy more likely to work if it's that much harder to pass. So you'd see all the teams start compromising their setups to eek more and more life out of the tyres even if it costs them a little bit in ultimate pace. The cars would also all have been designed to be easier on their tyres etc.

You could also argue that tyre blankets are artificial. They're certainly not road relevant, and they aren't used in many other series. Had Alonso not had tyre blankets to pre-heat his tyres for him then arguably Hamilton would have been able to pass him earlier in the lap as he would have been that much slower when he came out.

As ever it's all artificial and all a balancing act. Having initially been totally against DRS it is clear to me that some circuits that would otherwise produce some of the most boring races in history benefit so greatly from having it that it is worth the FIA occasionally getting it a little wrong and making passing too easy. In their defence the FIA were probably only 50m out with their positioning of the DRS so that it would have made closely match cars able to get alongside each other but not get a clear pass.