🇦🇪 F1'22 R22: Is DRS too powerful?

DRS stands for Drag Reduction System and works across Formula 1 as an aid to get drivers closer to each other. Introduced in 2011, but in the works for a while, it really came to a head in Abu Dhabi in 2010, with long-forgotten Vitaly Petrov holding up Fernando Alonso, and the net result being a Sebastian Vettel world title.

Fast forward 12 years, and Fernando Alonso dropped out of the race, Sebastian Vettel was leaving the sport and no-one knows where Petrov is, but DRS continues to generate conversation.

Here’s how it works. If a driver is within one second of any other car ahead of it at certain points of the track, they are allowed to open their rear wing down a straight.

Here’s how it looked in Brazil. In theory, you’re meant to be closer and then make an overtake at the next corner. In practice, however, it normally means the driver with the advantage is well clear before they reach the corner, with the boost being overly effective.

In Abu Dhabi, we saw this fairly early on with Mercedes and Ferrari trading places and trying to get the advantage with DRS either helping or hurting drivers in their decision-making and getting ahead of their rivals. On the commentary, Martin Brundle speculated that the system was too powerful, and maybe the detection zones should be shorter, to reduce its effect and encourage those outbraking, overtaking manouvres.

But it does add an element of tactics to F1 as a team sport with drivers asking for their teammates to stay within DRS to pull them ahead, for example.

So as a spectator sport, it gives people something else to speculate on and guess about, plus it almost acts as a high-speed death rattle. When the wing opens, you know business is about to pick up.

But perhaps its too powerful. Already this season, we’ve seen it have a profound, almost farcical effect.

In Jeddah, towards the end of the season, Ferrari and Red Bull were chasing each other with a handful of laps left at turn 23 with the final straight looming.

In one of the season’s iconic photos, both drivers slammed their brakes on at the detection line, not wanting to be ahead and be left as a sitting duck for the DRS zone to come. Verstappen won that race eventually, putting Red Bull on the board after giving their rivals a one-race headstart after the double DNF in Bahrain.

Elsewhere in the season, F1 thought about four DRS zones at Melbourne before scrapping that mid-weekend in the name of safety, and if there’s something F1 hasn’t learned in its current boom period, it’s that less is more and that you don’t need half the track with DRS.

So in the spirit of innovation, F1 should use its sprint races to experiment with DRS. They’re trying this next season with DRS opening a lap earlier at the sprints. I’ve written before about maybe extending the time threshold to 1.5 or 2 seconds at some tracks - going the other way from the actual point of this article, but I believe that the sprint should be more than just a short version of a race where the drivers are pushing, but not taking any risks.

Long-term, the plan is to scrap the drag reduction system in F1. As the cars are engineered to race closer without overheating or destroying their fragile Pirellis, reducing drag will become more redundant and eventually the system can be retired, but until then, it will continue to have a say in overtaking, and there are plenty of examples in 2022 that shows that F1 isn’t there yet.

That’s the end of Formula 1’s longest season (in days) to date. Next year brings with it a scheduled 24 races, although China is still reportedly up in the air. We’ll also see a new race, over Thanksgiving weekend, in Las Vegas, and new names on the grid, as Logan Sargeant joins Williams as the sport’s US influence continues to grow.

While F1 continues to innovate, explore and try to bring the entertainment part of the sport more into the spotlight, they need to exercise some caution with DRS. Part of the soul of the sport shines when drivers see a gap, get brave and dare each other to tap their brakes first going into a corner. It would be a shame if that shine was lost.

Let’s do it all again next season. Thanks for your continued support of this silly little F1 blog.