Question on DRS .

I noticed during the race that after that last round of stops , Nico was able to use the backmarkers to gain the DRS advantage over Lewis at least a couple of times .

Now , I guess it's maybe little better than "luck of the draw" when you come into lapping , but it struck me as a little unfair to see the back guys used this way , given they are under orders to move out of the way in the first place .

I'm sure there have been many instances of this that we haven't seen , but it struck me as wrong , and that perhaps the DRS advantage should only be applied when the guy ahead is a guy you are racing for position .


What do you cats all think about this ?

It currently works on the fact when you are within a second of any car. It does not discriminate between leaders, backmarkers or different lap cars.

I think it was quite tough on Lewis in this instance. To be 1.1 behind Nico who is 0.9 behind a Manor and end with Nico passed the Manor and 1.6 ahead is probably wrong.

However I am so anti DRS and pro other solutions to allow cars to follow that I don't think about it much.

16 looks in , and 1 reply .
Thanks , Steve .

I hate it , too .
But , if it has to be there , can we make it more fair ?
Would it make it more fair ?

I think you are looking for culprits in the wrong corner. The fact that Nico had DRS when getting to the lapped cars is hardly relevant. The main problem with lapped cars is where you find them, as finding one in Brazil's S2 is going to spoil your lap no matter what.

Besides, normally the first car to find lapped cars is the one which suffers the most, as that's the point then the lapped driver enters "being lapped mode" and becomes more aware of the fact that there are faster cars behind him. On top of that, lapping backmarkers usually opens up chances for a pursuer to overtake the car in front, which is also a rather unfair situation. What happens when the car behind has DRS, but you don't and you're approaching backmarkers? No matter how you look at it, every option has upsides and downsides.

If Nico had not had DRS due to the backmarkers , it would have been the normal situation we had before DRS had been invented .
He would have been vulnerable as they may have held him up .

Isn't it also adding in a hefty dash of danger , given the overspeed caused by DRS is potentially applied simultaneous to a lift from the blue-flagged driver ahead ?

I've had mixed feelings about this myself, for quite a while. Obviously the cars being lapped are already a lot slower, and DRS just increases the overtaking speed. But then again, on some tracks, and Brazil being one of them, if one of the lower powered cars catches up with a higher powered car, without the use of DRS they might never get by. That would take us back to the days of racing for position, and less artificial passes.

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

I hate it , too .
But , if it has to be there , can we make it more fair ?
Would it make it more fair ?

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Since the DRS is an electronic thing anyway and all of the cars already report their position to race control, I don't see why it's technically difficult to provide DRS to cars racing for position only.


The whole issue with DRS was brought about because cars following each other lose aero effects due to the turbulent air coming off the car in front. The obvious answer to me is to just get rid of wings altogether like Formula Fords used to be; to that end I think that Formula 4 took a retrograde step.

DRS, as used today, is an abomination. If they use it or not to overtake backmarkers doesn't solve that problem, so I don't really care. Either lose DRS or let everyone use it regardless of their position. I remember a race at Imola. I think it was in 2005. Schumacher struggled for many laps to pass Alonso and it didn't happened. And I thing it was the following year with the same scenario and same outcome but the roles reversed. No overtaking but still I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. It's not all about overtaking.

That situation has been around since day 1 and I don't really see a problem with it. If we have to endure DRS in the first place, they don't need to add more complexity to it. It would just be another piece of software that can fail in an inopportune moment.

I think it was Alonso in his Ferrari days, who actually waited for the DRS zone to pass a backmarker in order to have DRS to defend his position. In the end it is actually a good thing for the lapped driver, because, knowing that the other guy can just cruise past on DRS doesn't require them to lift massively on the straight.

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

If Nico had not had DRS due to the backmarkers , it would have been the normal situation we had before DRS had been invented .
He would have been vulnerable as they may have held him up .

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Or, he would have extended his lead as he may have passed them on the straight while Lewis had to follow them for a few corners. As N4D13 said, it all depends where you catch them, how quickly the marshals get the blue flags out, and how promptly the lapped driver responds to them. Whether you get DRS or not is a pretty minor part of how backmarkers can influence a race I think.

It seems , unsurprisingly , that we have a universal dislike for DRS .

I hate it , and particularly like the idea of restricting it's use .

It's a bad solution for a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

DRS is a gimmick and a complete embarrassment to the sport. It should be scrapped. I'd rather see one decent overtake in a race than 100 DRS moves.

I'd actually have no problem with DRS should the guy in front also have it but the way it is, is just stupid. It's probably fine for fair weather supporters but not people that have been following F1 since the early 90s like myself.

The only way out of this is for the following car to somehow be able to generate similar downforce to the guy in front. As Lewis eluded to recently, I don't know how such a solution would be implemented but it would be great if a solution was found. Whether that might somehow be some sort of aerodynamic solution that cause the airflow to merge at the back of the leading car so the following one doesn't lose downforce or something to do with the front wings so as the front doesn't wash out. But it's the only way I can see F1 getting out of this, otherwise it's going to be the same as it has been for a long time.

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Originally Posted by The Black Knight

The only way out of this is for the following car to somehow be able to generate similar downforce to the guy in front. As Lewis eluded to recently, I don't know how such a solution would be implemented but it would be great if a solution was found. Whether that might somehow be some sort of aerodynamic solution that cause the airflow to merge at the back of the leading car so the following one doesn't lose downforce or something to do with the front wings so as the front doesn't wash out. But it's the only way I can see F1 getting out of this, otherwise it's going to be the same as it has been for a long time.

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The problem is, that exactly that is simply not possible, unless you build cars that generate almost no aerodynamic downforce. Such cars would be wind-guided vehicles, and more or less the sort of death-trap several drivers died in each year in the fifties. Every object that moves through air at speed creates wake turbulence and that inevitably influences any object that follows close. You might be able to soften the effect, but at the speeds F1 cars are going, you'll always have that problem unless you bring back active suspension and the likes.

Why can't we go back to the mid-90s style aero? I think the close racing between Hill, Schumacher, Coulthard, Villeneuve, and others was great, with cars following each other for many many laps until a definitive overtake move happened.

The current "slingshot" style DRS overtakes are indeed an embarrassment for the sport. DRS also makes the races boring, because as I have mentioned there is significantly less close racing because of it.

We hate it , but we have it , and it isn't like they are talking about taking it away .

But , can we make it better ?

Would making it for lead-lap drivers only , help at all ?

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

We hate it , but we have it , and it isn't like they are talking about taking it away .

But , can we make it better ?

Would making it for lead-lap drivers only , help at all ?

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It's hard to see how. It looks to me like it would be more popular if you could only use it for lapping traffic.

That's quite a fun idea.

Drop DRS as it is and scrap blue flags and just give leaders DRS for clearing back markers.

Geez , Andy , I'm only trying to make it better .

Those leading Mercs have enough power that they can have all sorts of downforce , so the effect is negated to a degree larger than the rest .
It seems they can make a bigger hole in the air , so they are hard to follow .

So , in effect , the only chance Lewis had to fight was when they encountered those backmarkers .
It's probably happened many times before , but it really bugged me when Nico was able to use them to get the DRS open , when they should be diving out of the way so as to not affect the leaders's races .

Blue flags are meant to keep them out of the way , and effectively deals with that , whilst allowing for a cleverly positioned pass , given that the guy being passed must go off line and slow .

DRS killed that possibility , at least this time , and would be easy to fix so it wouldn't happen again .

I don't want those guys to fix anything. I had enough of their fixing. In fact I'd like to have most of the things they fixed in the last 15 years unfixed.

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

So , in effect , the only chance Lewis had to fight was when they encountered those backmarkers .
It's probably happened many times before , but it really bugged me when Nico was able to use them to get the DRS open , when they should be diving out of the way so as to not affect the leaders's races .

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It sounds like you want to change the rules to give Hamilton a better chance to win a race that's already finished.

Backmarkers have always affected battles for the higher positions. Sometimes it's the guy in front who gets the advantage, sometimes the guy behind. The introduction of DRS didn't change that, and neither would removing DRS for passing backmarkers.

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Originally Posted by AndyL

It sounds like you want to change the rules to give Hamilton a better chance to win a race that's already finished.

Backmarkers have always affected battles for the higher positions. Sometimes it's the guy in front who gets the advantage, sometimes the guy behind. The introduction of DRS didn't change that, and neither would removing DRS for passing backmarkers.

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But for the "win a race that's already finished" bit , I mostly agree .

My point is , though , that Lewis would likely have had a much better chance to get close enough to Nico to attempt a pass in the pre-DRS era .
Backmarkers have always represented an opportunity in this regard .

But , i believe it to be less so now , and also believe it an easy fix .
That's all .

I don't care who the guy behind is , but I want him to be able to push the guy ahead into a mistake as he gets through traffic .