Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Formula 1 held its annual street race in Azerbaijan this past weekend. With its very high-speed track, the city of Baku has seen some rather exciting racing. But that was not the case this year, which proved more soporific than Ambien. But at least one other race was truly entertaining this weekend, as the World Endurance Championship visited Belgium. Watching the two makes me think it’s time for F1 to drop a couple of the driver assists.
Part 1: The case for banning DRS
F1’s problem this year is one it often suffers from. One team has designed a better car than anyone else, and assuming that team—Red Bull Racing—stays reliable, it’s almost certain to win both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships. It’s not Red Bull’s fault it did a much better job than anyone else this year, but its advantage is magnified by a techno-crutch that was added to the sport some years ago to try to increase overtaking.
It’s called DRS (drag reduction system), and it was introduced in 2011 to address the problem of one F1 car not being able to follow another closely enough through a corner that it could then build up the necessary speed to overtake.
At the time, F1 cars generated much of their aerodynamic downforce from their front wings. But a wing generates more downforce in clean air than turbulent, and those F1 cars also created a wake of such dirty air out the back that following a car too closely in a corner simply caused the trailing car to run wide (or understeer), losing time and any chance at overtaking.
This made the racing really boring, so DRS was introduced. At certain parts of the race track, assuming the following driver is within a second of the car they’re chasing, pressing the button marked DRS causes the main element of the rear wing to drop flat, reducing the amount of drag the car creates and giving it a bit of a speed up.
NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images
The first reason I think it’s time for DRS to go is that finally, instead of just adding techno-crutches, F1 went and changed the way that cars are allowed to create downforce. Instead of being highly dependent on the front wing and how that airflow moves over the top of the car, now an F1 car uses a sculpted underbody with a profile that generates downforce via ground effect. That makes it much less sensitive to washing out behind another car, and, indeed, since the new technical rules went into effect last year, we have seen F1 cars able to follow each other much more closely.
Since the new cars have allowed the cars to close up, it’s time to take off the training wheels—or training flaps, rather—and see if they can do it unaided. I bet they can.
The second reason is because of just how good a job Red Bull did with the DRS on the RB19. Essentially, dropping the main element of the rear wing causes the airflow to stall on the beam wing and also slow through the floor. Consequently, the RB19 is unstoppable, going 12-15 mph faster than its rivals this past weekend.
I don’t think banning DRS would stop the RB19’s domination—it’s too fast through the corners for that, and both Red Bull drivers appear on top of their game right now. But it would at least make them work a little harder for those trophies.
