DRS - how to make it fair

[Il_leone]

the DRS advantage is dependent really on the tyres which makes it even greater

the only thing is to look at the activation point to move it further forward such as China where you need to make a dive instead of easy pass

but I am sure Spain, Monaco and Hungary will be less affected by the DRs given the nature of the circuits

 

[sushifiesta]

The Artist..... I don't know much about drag and aerodynamics but one thing I do know is that drag scales as speed squared. If you assume the cars travel at half the speed at the start of the straight than they are at the end of the straight, DRS would be four times less effective if placed at the start of the straight. Having said that, maybe we want it to be four times less effective...

 

[jez101]

sushifiesta - that was one of the Alonso v Rosberg points I noticed. It appeared from the graphics that the benefit that Alonso got by having the faulty DRS right from the corner exit, was just as big it seemed. Having less drag while accelerating, gave him a 20kph advantage more quickly that when it was activated at the right point. Then, the advantage was more like 15kph.

DRS closed the gap just as well if not better under acceleration?

 

[teabagyokel]

jez101 - It's an interesting idea, certainly on the easier zones - Shanghai back straight, Radillion, Yeongam second straight etc. - it might work.

I think some of the problem is that a DRS zone isn't uniform - as last week, a pass by a slippery FI on Grosjean (as I recall) looks simple, while similarly set-up cars do make it look more like a battle. It's going to be difficult to square that circle and make it look convincing.

 

[Mika's Italian Tears]

Although I am not a fan of DRS, given the higher number of overtakes after the introduction DRS (regardless of the quality or authenticity of such overtakes), I guess it makes some sense to retain DRS.

But, I personally would like it to be either banned or be fully usable in Quali (preferably banned - dont' see the point of DRS zones in Quali) and be usable like KERS in a race. All drivers should be allowed to open the DRS flap xx number of times during a race (at any point of the track they wish to, regardless of the lead or deficit over the driver in front/ back), which may make it more interesting.

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Replace DRS and give the drivers Turtle Shells to fire.

 

[Il_leone]

Slyboogy

You can add a few slippery banana peels and some thunderbolts that Webber could use to squash Vettel ( well every other driver as well could use) or is it a heat seeking missile they have now

 

[Slyboogy]

I'm not actually kidding here.

But for university, we drove all the way to the racetrack where we were preparing the car and setting it up for the lecturers, for a 40-60minutes drive on the countryside road with the speed limit at 70mph, and 4 of us students with student passengers racing at 80mph+ on these roads in our cars, it was awesome.

But one guy was ahead, and the one in the passenger seat started chucking banana peels out of the car to those behind along with other things

I have to say, driving there and back was much more awesome than going to the racetrack, as it was if we were Rallycrossing for an hour, no traffic at all, and me using the other side of the road as a ractrack

(sorry jez101 for going off topic )

 

[gethinceri]

Drive slower Slyboogy.
I think we had this conversation on 606.
Students are not made of rubber, regardless of their own view of their mortality.

 

[Slyboogy]

Well considering that the lecturer was leading the way in his land rover defender with a trailer that had the race car on it, and going faster than us, we had to keep up as we didn't know the way

 

[soccerman17]

Push to Pass. Works awesome with IndyCar. I know its what KERS is but lets be real KERS is kind of dumb right now as everyone I feel uses it at the same spot at every track on the attack or not. Instead give them extra HP 10 or 15 times a race but don't give them enough to make it an automatic overtake down the straight like DRS is. Make em have to work for it.

 

[The Pits]

If you look at it, you could suppose that all racing is inherently unfair, or that any attempt to try to make it fair is inherently unfair.

Why should the driver behind be hampered by the dirty air from the guy in front? Or advantaged by DRS? Why should the teams with the most money actually be allowed to spend it?

 

[Galahad]

I would remind everyone that a large part of the improvement in overtaking in 2010 was due to the presence of Caterham, Marussia and HRT (Lotus and Virgin as was).

We have gone from one extreme to the other, in many ways, as Pirelli and DRS came in at the same time. Possibly the tyres would be enough on their own; but the overtaking there is only a product of strategic overlap.

My preference, realistically (on the basis that the fundamentals will not be changed), is still for DRS to be pared back a bit so that the changes of position aren't automatic.

 

[Incubus]

I persist in thinking the FIA's recent policies are making the problem worse and the idiocy of appointing the same man to design all recent tracks is pure folly..

The root cause of the overtaking problem has for some time been that today's cars with their ultra-sensitive aero packages have outgrown today's circuits so why WORSEN THE PROBLEM by putting track design in the charge of a man whom as far as we know has no formal qualification of any kind when it comes to aero engineering???

Herman Tilke is a road traffic engineer and ex-touring car driver. I'm sure he has his own imposed guidelines but the fact is his designs are characterised by tracks where low-to-middle speed corners are the norm and singularly lack variety and so we end up with a sort of "standard optimum set-up", without too much room for opting for a particularly high or low downforce setting. Hence lack of variety between cars that are much quicker on some parts of a track but having to defend on other parts.

That made the "need" for quick-fix (and counter-productive) solutions seem more urgent when the powers -that-be appear blind to the fact these new-generation tracks have made the overtaking problem a hell of a lot worse.

 

[Wombcat]

Are the Tilke-tracks really the problem? I don't think that in other classes they stand out as none-overtaking tracks. We need to remember that it's not just F1 that races on the circuits. If in other classes there's no problem with overtaking, the problem probably isn't the circuit.

In fact the number of overtakes on the often praised Monza isn't that good either. Before DRS: In 2010 as much as Valencia (15). In 2009 as much as Monaco and Hungaroring (7). In 2008 it was wet. In 2007 9 overtakes, somewhere in the middle.

 

[Fenderman]

Whilst I'm not a fan of Herman Tilke, I also wonder if we unfairly criticise him and his team. The choices of host countries and the track locations must be part of the problem. It cannot be easy designing an interesting and challenging track anywhere where the topography is as flat as a pancake.

It has not escaped my attention that two of Tilke's best circuits are Turkey and the Circuit of the Americas. In the case of Turkey he had the natural topography to play with giving rise to a much more interesting circuit, especially with the fantastic "turn 8". At Austin he was faced with another flat, two dimensional sheet to work on but carte blanche to artificially create a three dimensional topography. There his design has worked brilliantly not only for F1 but also for MotoGP.

So my recipe is this: give the cars more mechanical grip from bigger tyres, engines with more "torquey" power delivery and "low down grunt". In addition, allow more ground effect and reintroduce circuits with highly varied topography similar to Austin and Turkey. Then restrict wing sizes and limit the number of winglets and vanes added to front and rear wings, but don't ban them altogether, whilst allowing designers to continue to explore aerodynamic shapes.

Finally, ditch the DRS it won't be necessary. Honest.

Note: a couple of circuits with some good, varied topography spring to mind: Brno (Czech Republic) and A1 Ring "cough" Red Bull Ring (Austria),

 

[Incubus]

I didn't say Tilke tracks are the problem when it comes to overtaking. just that their standardisation make things worse for racing as a whole, including the so-called need for DRS.

And Monza while we're on the subject is a great example of this.
The italian GP in 2010 was a great race-long battle between two cars that had a diametrically-opposed set-up configuration. Alonso was potentially faster than Button in front of him and had all the top-speed. But Button had a lot more wing on so was able to take his distances whenever the road turned.

A perfect example of a great race between two cars even though no actual overtaking took place. Put DRS in the mix and Alonso would have breezed past on lap 3 and that would have been it.

A perfect example of a great race that would have been ruined by DRS. How many more since HAVE been ruined by it?

A great race is when two or more cars FIGHT for the lead throughout, Not when they overtake each other at will. The cue is in the words AT WILL.
Innit.

 

[Wombcat]

What I remember from 2010 is that the races were boring, but the fight for the championship kept it exciting. I don't remember 2010 Monza specifically, but imo Monza was always a kinda boring race.
In 2011 it was the other way around: the races were exciting, but the fight for the championship was boring.

 

[Mezzer]

Get rid of DRS and bring back tyres you can actually attack with more than once, IMO. Or maybe, and I haven't thought this through at all but its all part of my turn-the-problem-on-its-head-and-see-what-it-looks-like mentality, how about DRS is effectively on all the time and if there's somone within a second of you its not deployed?

 

[soccerman17]

Within a second behind you? That actually sounds like a good idea. For real though casual fans want to see all this effortless passing B.S. because that is what draws viewers. Us hardcore racing fans don't want to see that we want to see hard nosed racing with overtaking possible but always tough work. In my opinion though the best way to fix DRS (and everything else for the matter) is to put me in charge of F1.