DRS in Monaco

[Incubus]

Could be an interesting one, that.
First of all I'd be curious to see where will designated DRS zones be, on a treack devoid of straights worthy of the name, And second I'm wondering whether we'll see a higher than usual rate of nose-cones, bits of wing or various bits being shed in said-areas.

One one hand drivers will have very little time and scope in which to activate DRS because the next corner comes at them immediately.
On the other hand the speed difference brought by DRS will be bigger than anywhere else because you need more wing to begin with at Monaco than anywhere else on the calendar, meaning that the difference between an "open" rear flap and a "shut" one is also greater than anywhere else in terms of drag.

Combine that with the ultra-short gear ratios used at Monaco and drivers' inability to "take a breather" between corners and it wouldn't be surprising to see many drivers being induced into misjudging other cars' speed, or having trouble maintaing concentration throughout.

Yeah, Monaco will be particularly... interesting this year.

 

[Matthew Little]

It will be interesting, Incubus, to see where F1 runs the venetian blind DRS at Monaco..........about the only places they could run will either be on the run up from St. Devote to the top of the hill around Massenet and then on the run from Portier to Nouvelle Chicane. I could be wrong, but those are the likely(if only) places to use it.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

There's no law that says they have to run DRS at all, if they choose not to.
They presumably could, if they wanted, say something like, "This is not a circuit where DRS will be effective, so we will disable it throughout the race."

 

[Incubus]

Who, the teams you mean?
Why would they disable it, as opposed to simply avoid using it? The system can't weigh very much so why not just keep it anyway?

 

[Brogan]

I expect DRS will be of little use in Monaco; let's face it, it's difficult to pass at the best of times, even with a huge speed differential.
Pirelli have also designated the super soft tyre for Monaco so how many laps is that going to last?

Expect another procession as usual.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Who, the teams you mean?
Why would they disable it, as opposed to simply avoid using it? The system can't weigh very much so why not just keep it anyway?

Sorry, by 'They' I meant the FIA. By 'disabling' DRS I suppose I meant Race Control not enabling it remotely during the race, which is what they do at the moment. I didn't mean that they should remove anything from the cars.

 

[Incubus]

You think maybe the FIA will impose a "no DRS curfew for this circuit? Could be, but in any case I didn't really make myself clear on the article.

the gist of it was that drivers have complained about the excessive number of controls and lights on the sterring wheel as detrimental to their concentration. The problem will be worse than anywhere else at Monaco especially if DRS is a factor.

With all this inmind maybe we can expect a higher number of incidents at this year's race than previous editions.

 

[LewisWDC11]

The best place for DRS in Monaco would probably be after Portier and through the tunnel making it possible to get the deal done into the harbour chicane.

Having said that I would scrap it and maybe just have Kers. And just focus fully on qualifying.

 

[snowy]

I expect DRS will be of little use in Monaco; let's face it, it's difficult to pass at the best of times, even with a huge speed differential.

Lewis might find it useful.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

The thing is at Monaco, you quite often get 'trains' of cars held up behind a quick-starting or fast-qualifying but otherwise slower driver, so there might well be a number of drivers activating their DRS simultaneously, except Trulli the lead car in the train.
So DRS might help faster drivers get past such mobile chicanes. Or it might just lead to a multiple pile-up and a red flag.

 

[LewisWDC11]

Ha. The Classic Trulli Train...

The good times....

 

[teabagyokel]

Sometimes at Monaco, the Train can stay on the tracks!

 

[MCLS]

Jonathan legard

 

[Pyrope]

On the other hand the speed difference brought by DRS will be bigger than anywhere else because you need more wing to begin with at Monaco than anywhere else on the calendar, meaning that the difference between an "open" rear flap and a "shut" one is also greater than anywhere else in terms of drag.

Actually, it's the other way around. The limit on the DRS's actuation is the distance that the leading edge of the flap is allowed to rise. With a low downforce wing (i.e. low angle of attack on the flap) this means that the flap can be raised to a pretty much horizontal position, resulting in a [huge simplification caveat alert!] near 100% drop in drag. With a high downforce wing the angle of attack on the flap will be higher and so the same (5 cm? Someone who can be bothered to check the technical regs correct me if I'm wrong) rise will only partially reduce the drag. As the wing's fixed elements will also be in high drag/downforce settings the overall reduction in drag from the wing will be much less than for a low downforce track.

I think DRS might well be ditched for Monaco...

 

[Speshal]

I think DRS might well be ditched for Monaco...

^ This, I can't really see anywhere it could be used really effectively aside from qualifying.

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

With a high downforce wing the angle of attack on the flap will be higher and so the same (5 cm? Someone who can be bothered to check the technical regs correct me if I'm wrong) rise will only partially reduce the drag.

I believe you're almost right:

3.10.2
Other than the bodywork defined in Article 3.10.9, any bodywork behind a point lying 50mm forward of the rear wheel centre line which is more than 730mm above the reference plane, and less than 355mm from the car centre line, must lie in an area when viewed from the side of the car that is situated between the rear wheel centre line and a point 350mm behind it. With the exception of minimal parts solely associated with adjustment of the section in accordance with Article 3.18 :
- when viewed from the side of the car, no longitudinal cross section may have more than two
sections in this area, each of which must be closed.
- no part of these longitudinal cross sections in contact with the external air stream may have a local
concave radius of curvature smaller than 100mm.
Once the rearmost and uppermost section is defined, ‘gurney’ type trim tabs may be fitted to the trailing
edge. When measured in any longitudinal cross section no dimension of any such trim tab may exceed
20mm.
The chord of the rearmost and uppermost closed section must always be smaller than the chord of the
lowermost section at the same lateral station.
Furthermore, the distance between adjacent sections at any longitudinal plane must lie between 10mm
and 15mm at their closest position, except, in accordance with Article 3.18, when this distance must lie
between 10mm and 50mm.

So it would appear that a minimum 10mm gap must be maintained between the fixed and movable chords even in the 'closed' position giving a maximum opening of 50mm and a maximum movement of 40mm (if I'm reading that correctly, and there's no guarantee that I am).

 

[Galahad]

I can't see the team principals being too keen on the idea of having the wing open in the tunnel.

 

[Brogan]

I can't see the team principals being too keen on the idea of having the wing open in the tunnel.

Indeed.

We've seen before what happens when drivers get over so slightly off line in the tunnel...

 

[MCLS]

and with these tyres marbles will be a bigger issue

 

[Pyrope]

I can't see the team principals being too keen on the idea of having the wing open in the tunnel.

And the only other "straight" worthy of consideration is the start-finish one, and even there it has quite a curve on it. I'm not sure that any driver is going to want an unstable rear end heading into Ste Devote or the chicane...