[Rules] DRS: Is it time for it to go?

[HDTVKSS]

Agreed, lets get rid of DRS so we can get back to complaining about there being no overtaking, just like the good old days....

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by HDTVKSS

Agreed, lets get rid of DRS so we can get back to complaining about there being no overtaking, just like the good old days....

What good old days are you talking about?
Obviously not the really good old, old, old days before aero took over completely, because there was variety, drama, competition and overtaking...
And a lack of complete dominance....

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Obviously not the really good old, old, old days before aero took over completely, because there was variety, drama, competition and overtaking...
And a lack of complete dominance....

Really? Surely that was only because Coventry-Climax engines were available to all of the garagistes?

There was nothing to stop a Mercedes or Ferrari dominating if they were competent enough to do so, as Mercedes did in the early 50's and both Mercedes and Auto Union teams did with their Nazi funding in the 1930's, unless I'm mistaken.

Could part of the lack of mega-Franc/Lira/Deutschmark dominance efforts in the 1.5L era be due to a lack of clear advantage in prestige over sportscar racing at the time? I.e., Formula One was comparatively small fry at the time and not where the big dollar efforts were focussed (compared to say Le Mans perhaps)?

So Formula One or Grand Prix racing in the late 50's and early 60's pre-downforce era wasn't attracting those kinds of big budget efforts to win at any cost with the intention to dominate -- unlike the 750kg era of Grand Prix racing where the German Government set aside the budget to ensure Grand Prix racing would be a definitive demonstration of German engineering superiority in a very much dominant manner?

Edit -- If you are including pre-ground effects as "not dominated by aero" as well (so up to '78 rather than up to '68), then there is similarly the availability of Cosworth DFV engines to all garagistes as a crucial factor. Plus the comparatively modest prestige, meaning that Ferrari or Renault or Matra etc were not prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money to win the Formula One world championship in the 1970's, with their efforts split over many championships including sportscar racing...?

Besides, neither Red Bull Racing (which now operates in a *budget cap* era no less, where the power units are relatively equal too!) or Scuderia Ferrari dominated only due to being prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money. Rival teams like Toyota F1 Team and McLaren-Mercedes were also prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money, yet did not manage to dominate.

^ "Unlimited" refers to $500m in 2005 dollars and being happy to employ 1000 employees for the Formula One effort. Of course in the 1970's, many of the Formula One engineering drawing offices would be lucky to have 5 (five!!!) people in them (some with only two or three), a far cry from the 500-600 engineers typical of a modern elite Grand Prix team. Of course credit must go to the garagistes for doing so well and innovating with such modest resources, but realistically did Scuderia Ferrari or Renault Gordini really write a blank cheque and lose (or be unable to dominate) regardless of that, or did they have a relatively modest budget in the 1970's too?

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by nobster

again...if one team does a better job then the other teams with this "driver aid" then why punish them? Other teams need to catch up!

Because driver aids have no place in F1. The best drivers shouldn't need them.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Because driver aids have no place in F1. The best drivers shouldn't need them.

I don't think that really addresses the point. Don't get me wrong, I'm with you 100% on 'driver aids' but all the time that we have to put up with them, I don't think we can criticise one team or another for making the best of it and doing a better job than everyone else. That's effectively how F1 always has been.

[bathurst77]

Maybe they could do what many other classes do. Get rid of DRS and have push to pass. Extra 10% power boost for 10 seconds, but you can only use it a couple of times in a race

Then it would be a tactical thing. Do I use it now or keep it in case I need it later.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

Maybe they could do what many other classes do. Get rid of DRS and have push to pass. Extra 10% power boost for 10 seconds, but you can only use it a couple of times in a race

Then it would be a tactical thing. Do I use it now or keep it in case I need it later.

It’s actually mega-tactical now, with the driver in front harvesting and then deploying to fight a pass off - it’s just that you can’t see that.

[Sodemo]

How is it that Indycars appear to be able to follow closely nose to tail, but F1 cars cannot?

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by V8 Fireworks

Really? Surely that was only because Coventry-Climax engines were available to all of the garagistes?

There was nothing to stop a Mercedes or Ferrari dominating if they were competent enough to do so, as Mercedes did in the early 50's and both Mercedes and Auto Union teams did with their Nazi funding in the 1930's, unless I'm mistaken.

Could part of the lack of mega-Franc/Lira/Deutschmark dominance efforts in the 1.5L era be due to a lack of clear advantage in prestige over sportscar racing at the time? I.e., Formula One was comparatively small fry at the time and not where the big dollar efforts were focussed (compared to say Le Mans perhaps)?

So Formula One or Grand Prix racing in the late 50's and early 60's pre-downforce era wasn't attracting those kinds of big budget efforts to win at any cost with the intention to dominate -- unlike the 750kg era of Grand Prix racing where the German Government set aside the budget to ensure Grand Prix racing would be a definitive demonstration of German engineering superiority in a very much dominant manner?

Edit -- If you are including pre-ground effects as "not dominated by aero" as well (so up to '78 rather than up to '68), then there is similarly the availability of Cosworth DFV engines to all garagistes as a crucial factor. Plus the comparatively modest prestige, meaning that Ferrari or Renault or Matra etc were not prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money to win the Formula One world championship in the 1970's, with their efforts split over many championships including sportscar racing...?

Besides, neither Red Bull Racing (which now operates in a *budget cap* era no less, where the power units are relatively equal too!) or Scuderia Ferrari dominated only due to being prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money. Rival teams like Toyota F1 Team and McLaren-Mercedes were also prepared to spend unlimited amounts of money, yet did not manage to dominate.

^ "Unlimited" refers to $500m in 2005 dollars and being happy to employ 1000 employees for the Formula One effort. Of course in the 1970's, many of the Formula One engineering drawing offices would be lucky to have 5 (five!!!) people in them (some with only two or three), a far cry from the 500-600 engineers typical of a modern elite Grand Prix team. Of course credit must go to the garagistes for doing so well and innovating with such modest resources, but realistically did Scuderia Ferrari or Renault Gordini really write a blank cheque and lose (or be unable to dominate) regardless of that, or did they have a relatively modest budget in the 1970's too?

My comment had nothing to do with DFV's, budget caps, resources, or money.
It was a reflection on the quality of racing at that time compared with the things that later generations of F1 followers note just as earlier generations do.
Many cite reliability and say much of the racing was boring, or uninteresting, or not entertaining.
But as someone who grew up in that generation it was none of those things, certainly not to the extent that it is now.

F1 regulators have, over the last thirty years in particular, been preoccupied with restrictions and rule making as a means of limiting designers and constructors as a means of limiting costs and speeds for the purpose of safety, closeness and making races more entertaining.
Whilst we could never decry the safety improvements much of the rest has failed and continues to fail.

In the last twenty years we have had periods where one constructor has dominated for a significant period of time, meaning multiple years of domination. There was Ferrari, later Red Bull, then Mercedes, now Red Bull again.
Renault had two years but that is nothing, and McLaren bagged a championship along with Brawn, which was a respite, but since then it has been a series of Red Bull and Mercedes domination of the championships.

No one can blame the teams for maximizing the opportunities available through the regulations, but the various attempts at leveling the playing field have not succeeded, and there may be some very clear reasons for that.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

F1 regulators have, over the last thirty years in particular, been preoccupied with restrictions and rule making as a means of limiting designers and constructors as a means of limiting costs and speeds for the purpose of safety, closeness and making races more entertaining.
Whilst we could never decry the safety improvements much of the rest has failed and continues to fail.

In the last twenty years we have had periods where one constructor has dominated for a significant period of time, meaning multiple years of domination. There was Ferrari, later Red Bull, then Mercedes, now Red Bull again.
Renault had two years but that is nothing, and McLaren bagged a championship along with Brawn, which was a respite, but since then it has been a series of Red Bull and Mercedes domination of the championships.

No one can blame the teams for maximizing the opportunities available through the regulations, but the various attempts at leveling the playing field have not succeeded, and there may be some very clear reasons for that.

I think a few other factors are missing. And I think they are significant drivers. While we can call out regulations that try to drive down "cost". What those really are doing is trying to take away the advantage of large budgets. So my first big driver is available budget. As mentioned earlier, teams from many decades ago had tiny engineering staff. And I expect they would have had more if they could afford it. I am sure someone has done the analysis to look at budgets adjusted for inflation, but I expect they have grown by as much as an order of magnitude.

Another dimension is overall knowledge of the technology and science of F1 is massively different. Material science, tools such as computer analysis for simulation of nearly everything, automation of engineering, etc. It is an overall accumulation of knowledge and experience plus huge jumps in design and construction capabilities. The list of differences on that front is endless.

My point is that the world has not been static and it is just FIA who continues to mess with the regulations and have created a mess. They are continuously trying to adjust to a moving target. How well they are doing that is a debatable topic, but it is a moving target.

Richard

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

How is it that Indycars appear to be able to follow closely nose to tail, but F1 cars cannot?

Bear in mind that Indycar is a spec series.

[chillibowl]

not an expert on Indy, but i would also suspect that Indy cars are designed with the intention of close racing/following in mind where as F1 cars are intended to run in clean air?

[Pingguest]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

not an expert on Indy, but i would also suspect that Indy cars are designed with the intention of close racing/following in mind where as F1 cars are intended to run in clean air?

Indeed and Formula One-cars are designed for performance only.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Pingguest

Bear in mind that Indycar is a spec series.

True, but that does not inherently speak as to "why". The question really is... what in the Indycar design creates that situation.

Originally Posted by chillibowl

where as F1 cars are intended to run in clean air?

Are they? I expect those that perform well have a mixture of operating scenarios.

Originally Posted by Pingguest

Indeed and Formula One-cars are designed for performance only.

Are they? I argue they are demonstrably not. They are designed within a tight set of technical regulations and broadly speaking have a specific performance target set by those regulations. There are reports of teams building more modular components (I believe aero components) so that they can get more reuse of existing items within the cost caps. So cost is a driver (and not a new one) as well.

They are designed to be a quick as possible within the sandbox defined by the regulator. They could easily be much faster than they are today for less money.

Richard

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Are they? I expect those that perform well have a mixture of operating scenarios.

assumption on my part, but the top teams probably dont feel this is necessary so focus on building a front running car and as they sell more parts/concepts to the smaller teams and/or those smaller teams copy the design philosophies of the top teams, you get what we have now, a filtering down of a design ethos where everyone is, intentionally or not, building towards the goal of having a front running car?

add in the budget cap and one wonders how much can be spent on running your wind tunnel and or using CFD time on the effects of running mid pack/optimizing for a wider ranger of scenarios.

although, i think the more straightforward answer is that if this wasn't true, then why are so many of the new rule changes (from DRS to new rear wing configurations brought in by FOM) aimed squarely at moving the teams into building cars that are easier to follow?

rather, what is the incentive for any team in F1, even a back marker team to designing a car that is easier to follow unless they are forced to?

for me DRS strikes at the heart of this problem by trying to eliminate, perhaps even unfairly, the advantage by design the car out front has.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

assumption on my part, but the top teams probably dont feel this is necessary so focus on building a front running car and as they sell more parts/concepts to the smaller teams and/or those smaller teams copy the design philosophies of the top teams, you get what we have now, a filtering down of a design ethos where everyone is, intentionally or not, building towards the goal of having a front running car?

I think I made my point above poorly. The cars are not running in time trails in which they just run solo. Even if you have a quick car, given the regulations (required tire changes push you down in the order even if temporarily) or you might have poor qualifying. So you are likely to be following other cars at some point. You don't want to be stuck behind a slow car as your car is incapable running in a pack of cars. Sometimes that happens. Haven't we seen Hamilton get stuck behind slower cars a few time this and last season?

So all teams should expect to not optimize for a single scenario (such as running solo in clean air). Now all scenarios are not equal. If you are a top team like Red Bull, you will not think "we are going to be mid-pack all the time, so we should prioritize our aero concepts to ensure we can run well in a pack of cars". They will anticipate (hope) they are leaders vs. followers and will spend more time in clean air that others. But regardless they will have to make some compromises.

A perfect example of this is when you hear teams comment on them making compromises for qualifying (qualifying is like a time trail as they are mostly running solo) but their aero setup might come alive in the race and then result in a much better race pace than someone who optimized for a qualifying setup (or even overall design)

Originally Posted by chillibowl

add in the budget cap and one wonders how much can be spent on running your wind tunnel and or using CFD time on the effects of running mid pack/optimizing for a wider ranger of scenarios.

I expect all teams try to do this. But they either get it wrong, or run out of cash is trying to do this via brute force. Case in point, I think I have read articles that say McLaren's problems have their root in a combination of their tooling (older tunnels) and how they approach the problem (outdated).

Originally Posted by chillibowl

although, i think the more straightforward answer is that if this wasn't true, then why are so many of the new rule changes (from DRS to new rear wing configurations brought in by FOM) aimed squarely at moving the teams into building cars that are easier to follow?

You lost me somewhere in this (regarding the "if this wasn't true" part).

Originally Posted by chillibowl

rather, what is the incentive for any team in F1, even a back marker team to designing a car that is easier to follow unless they are forced to?

I think... broadly this is true. That if you can get overall speed, teams will focus on that. And prior regulations allowed for teams to move in an aero direction that created significant wake behind the cars.

So yes, if the rules create a negative scenario, the teams will not fix that on their own if there remains an incentive (performance capability) to continue on that path. So what has been done is less about "forcing the teams to build cars that are easier to follow", but rather "removing the tools from the teams that they used to build cars that were difficult to follow". It's a slight but important distinction between the two. Even today the teams will do what they can to make their cars faster even if that means creating wake issues that are contrary to the goals of the new regulations.

There is now articles calling out this issue. Drivers saying that as the cars continue to develop that improvements are both making the car quicker, but also making them harder to follow. Teams are finding solutions that improve performance but degrade the ability to follow. Teams have no incentive to prevent this from happening.

https://racingnews365.com/sainz-beli...rder-to-follow

https://www.grandprix247.com/2023/05...der-to-follow/

Originally Posted by chillibowl

for me DRS strikes at the heart of this problem by trying to eliminate, perhaps even unfairly, the advantage by design the car out front has.

Who knows who is right in this argument/discussion. My perspective is that they solutions have become so optimized and with aero solutions that have relatively small operating windows that they have been forced to inject some level of unpredictability to disrupt the order. That is a combination of things such as lack of longevity in some tire compounds, forced to run two compounds during a race and lastly DRS.

Richard

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

You lost me somewhere in this (regarding the "if this wasn't true" part).

poorly made point on my part there.

was meant more as a question...if it is not true that all the teams are primarily trying to design front running cars, then why is FOM/regulators mainly introducing rules aimed at design solutions which work better for cars driving within a crowd?

the assumption i am making here is that the rules are aimed at curtailing the teams' propensity to design cars that really only work while in clean air.

but of course, that is not the only conclusion one could draw from this....as you do point out.

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Who knows who is right in this argument/discussion. My perspective is that they solutions have become so optimized and with aero solutions that have relatively small operating windows that they have been forced to inject some level of unpredictability to disrupt the order. That is a combination of things such as lack of longevity in some tire compounds, forced to run two compounds during a race and lastly DRS.

so yes indeed, another valid conclusion one could draw is that FOM are really just making changes to introduce unpredictability rather than trying to correct a design trend chosen by the teams.

as a side point, as we move along in this DRS discussion we probably should be getting back to older talking points about the need for better compounds that can withstand the effects of following.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

was meant more as a question...if it is not true that all the teams are primarily trying to design front running cars, then why is FOM/regulators mainly introducing rules aimed at design solutions which work better for cars driving within a crowd?

Ahh, ok I get it.

My thoughts... Teams and FOM/FIA have different goals. From a purely sporting perspective, teams just want to win. If they destroy the competition even better. FOM (and maybe a bit FIA) want an entertaining commercial product. The ideal outcome for both are contrary to each other. Its the old sport vs. entertainment aspect of F1.

I think at some level the teams, FOM and FIA are on the same page in that they realize they have to keep it entertaining to keep an appropriately large number of eyeballs on the races, which flow down into justifying sponsorship money which fuels the entire circus.

Richard

[Born Racer]

Yet again, from a sporting or entertainment point of view (and I intentionally refer to them as separate entities), how can anyone defend DRS? It ruined a perfectly good battle between Sainz and Pérez, putting an end to it when the Red Bull sailed past.

[Aysedasi]

Surprisingly enough, I agree.

[chillibowl]

Good battle? Weren’t they on different tires? Didn’t Sainz also have a late pit stop during the SC dropping him back, also had to contend with team orders, and a penalty compromising his track position? Even if one puts aside that the RB was much faster than the Ferrari, I actually am curious why one would think DRS was to blame here?

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Yet again, from a sporting or entertainment point of view (and I intentionally refer to them as separate entities), how can anyone defend DRS? It ruined a perfectly good battle between Sainz and Pérez, putting an end to it when the Red Bull sailed past.

A problem is that you have absolutely no idea how things might now play out without DRS. It's an alternative universe, a total unknown.

[v8supes]

Yeah and thats been my point for a while Peebee. With DRS you pretty much know that as soon as the car is within DRS range then they will just cruise past without the car infront defending, with little chance of the driver who has just been passed having any hope of coming back.

At least without DRS you can have battles, you have the intrigue, the suspense. Of course it would lead to less overtaking and there would be times when clearly faster drivers wouldn't be able to get through but for me thats much better than just watching people cruise past on the straight. However i am not the target audience for F1 anymore.

[S griffin]

DRS has been here far too long. It's taken away the excitement and also the skill of overtaking. Really they should have reduced downforce sooner, even if we didn't get loads of overtaking. We don't need lots of overtaking every race, F1 has more to it than that. Really it's time to start going back to more basics

[Born Racer]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Surprisingly enough, I agree.

I was so annoyed, I paused the recording to write that post.

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Good battle? Weren’t they on different tires? Didn’t Sainz also have a late pit stop during the SC dropping him back, also had to contend with team orders, and a penalty compromising his track position? Even if one puts aside that the RB was much faster than the Ferrari, I actually am curious why one would think DRS was to blame here?

I wasn't referring to how his overall race panned out, but that specific battle. The Red Bull is faster than the Ferrari in itself and I have no issue with that, but my point was that when Pérez sailed by, it was with DRS and was a far cry from the intrigue and exciting car positioning of the wheel-to-wheel battle. DRS effectively ended the battle it would seem, or at least certainly helped put an end to it, as Pérez had much less trouble getting by when he eventually did than in the preceding laps.

Originally Posted by peebee2

A problem is that you have absolutely no idea how things might now play out without DRS. It's an alternative universe, a total unknown.

I do agree it's an unknown, peebee, but I think it's time for everyone to get to know it, or at least do proper research into how the rest of the regulations would work without DRS. It strikes me that finally, after years of an extreme dirty air problem, the cars are tricky enough to pass to create good racing, but it's viable enough to not make it a foregone conclusion that the car in front will stay ahead. Now, it's often a foregone conclusion that the car behind will get by.