When the Drag Reduction System (DRS) first emerged in 2011, it was seen as a short-term fix – a patch that would bridge Formula 1 through major changes, eliminating the need for what has been consistently criticized as “artificial”. .
Yet despite the major overhaul to the rules aimed at tracking cars more closely in 2022, which should make such a device obsolete, we’re about to enter Season 12 of F1’s DRS era.
That’s a long life for a stopgap for what is at best a necessary evil and despised by many. Sebastian Vettel memorably compared it to Mario Kart, the classic yet cartoonish racing game.
“I’m not a big fan of DRS,” Vettel said at a press conference ahead of the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix. “I think [of] Mario Kart – it might be more fun to throw bananas out of the cockpit.
“So maybe having bananas is a better idea than DRS. I don’t like it, I think it’s artificial.
“We should find another way to have the cars follow each other more closely and not rely on DRS.”
Given the goals of the 2022 regulations to simplify the cars, reduce turbulence and do exactly what Vettel says – allow them more accurate tracking – it’s reasonable to ask why the DRS is still there.
The explanation is simple – be careful.
These regulations have been well researched, with analysis of the following car performance, carried out by the FIA before these regulations were first published in 2019, shows how significant the improvement could be.
The study found that a trailing car only had 55% of its downforce when one car length was behind another, rising to 79% when seven car lengths were behind. The car concept simulations for 2021 put downforce at 86% for one car length and increases to 98% for seven car lengths.
These numbers should not be taken as gospel. The final cars for 2022 will likely be more complex than the concept car models despite the mandated regulations, so how effective they will be remains to be seen. The FIA expects the real downforce loss figures to settle somewhere between the 2021 values and the simulated values of 22.
FIA technical chief Nikolas Tombazis stated the position back in May 2018 at a time when the regulations for 2022 (then 2021) were being formulated.
“There’s a fundamental uneasiness about DRS,” Tombazis said. “We believe that DRS is the right thing to do as things stand.
“We hope that the cars can follow each other much more closely and it would be a really nice result if we can greatly reduce or even eliminate DRS in the future.
“But until we get into a position where we’re comfortable enough with the wake performance and how cars can follow each other, that’s something I would call a necessary evil.”
Until the 2022 cars put in some racing miles and gather more real-world data on how well they’re following each other, it’s impossible, as Tombazis put it, to be comfortable enough with wake performance.
Inevitably, one will be tempted to explain whether or not the new rules worked out of the box, but it takes a series of races across a variety of courses to create a dataset representative of wake performance. It’s also important to keep expectations in check, as the laws of physics mean turbulence is inevitable – it’s just a matter of how far it can be mitigated.
While F1 does not want to make sweeping changes to these rules in the short term, the removal of the DRS is on the radar. It is a goal to get rid of the DRS if possible, so the key question is whether this will work.
Removing the DRS from the 2022 regulations would have been bold, not least because of the embarrassment of having to turn back and reintroduce it. Nor can it be assumed that the regulations will definitely work well enough to be dropped in 2023 or 2024.
In assessing the prospects for this, it is important to keep in mind the reasons for the DRS. In its purest form, the DRS shouldn’t create easy drive-by overtakes. Instead, it was about allowing a car to recover from ground lost in the previous corners to get close enough to start a move.
The ideal, only occasionally achieved in its 218-race existence, was to create contested braking zones and allow for true wheel-to-wheel combat. Perhaps the FIA should have adjusted the length of the zones more often to make this more possible – although there were times when the race weekends were tightened up, especially in the early years.
But the ability to make adjustments means it doesn’t have to be simply a matter of whether or not the DRS is there. Once enough races have been run under the new rules to draw some robust conclusions, it should be possible to fine-tune – ie shorten – the DRS zones and thus move towards a future without them.
The hope is that F1 is on track to remove DRS, first by reducing its use in races before eventually eliminating adjustable bodywork altogether. As an alternative, there’s also the possibility that it could be used as a straight-line speed increase button, potentially usable for a period of time in races without the restrictions of having to be a second behind another car at the recognition points. But it would be desirable if the DRS is not needed at all.
It’s frustrating that F1 still needs DRS. Philosophically most oppose it, but pragmatically it was necessary. Remember what happened at the last non-DRS race in Abu Dhabi in 2010 when title chaser Fernando Alonso got stuck behind Vitaly Petrov without a chance to overtake.
F1 has to find a good balance between easy passes and the impossibility of overtaking. If the 2022 regulations do the job they were designed to do – and that’s a big if – then perhaps it could mean that F1 can do away with a necessary evil.
