DRS Debate: Is It Just an Easy Fix in F1?

F1 leaders Stella and Krack express doubts about DRS as a straightforward solution to overtaking hurdles.

Andrea Stella, McLaren F1’s team principal, is concerned about the cars’ ability to follow each other. Aerodynamic turbulence is increasingly problematic, and the Italian worries that DRS might be the only solution on certain tracks, such as Miami.

“There’s obviously an easy solution, which is the DRS, but it does raise the question that with the cars’ development, it seems that following has once again become a bit more tricky,” Stella added.

“I don’t think it’s as extreme as before, with the new generation of cars, but it definitely seems more difficult than we anticipated with this generation of cars.”

Stella believes that extending the DRS zone would be “the easy solution,” but he’s uncertain if there are other options: “I must say that we expected overtaking to be slightly easier, so we were surprised to find it so difficult.”

“I think the DRS zone is ultimately a bit too short because you don’t have time to recover the lap time or the distance you lose, and you largely lose it in the low-speed section.”

“Even in the high-speed section, there are two zones before the long straight. It seems that you lose a bit too much time to recover it on the straight. It’s a bit surprising.”

Mike Krack, the team principal of Aston Martin, knows that some circuits, including Miami, are likely to produce DRS trains: “In the past, we know that here, you get these DRS trains, and even with the DRS from the car ahead, it’s not easy either.”

“And we had one of those cars, the Alpine, which is the toughest in the straight with the Williams. We knew it wasn’t going to be good. It was really difficult to overtake. And it was, where you have the DRS detection points, you need to be really close and then use all your energy to pass.”