The thought behind the DRS overtaking help was to create a sticking-plaster answer to the issue created by aerodynamics in F1.
That’s, make the automotive’s efficiency depending on downforce, and overtaking will all the time be onerous as a result of the disruption to the airflow over a automotive behind one other reduces its grip and makes it onerous to comply with intently.
DRS was meant to simulate a slipstream – a straight-line benefit to the automotive behind – and the plan was to make overtaking doable, not inevitable.
Attempting to stability these calls for has not all the time been simple – generally overtaking has been too simple; generally it nonetheless is.
It was solely ever meant to be a brief answer. And when the present laws have been conceived, the hope was that it may very well be discarded, as a result of following can be quite a bit simpler. It grew to become obvious even earlier than they have been launched in 2022 that might not be the case.
Now, one other rule-set has pressured one other answer. However it’s not as a result of DRS hasn’t labored; it is as a result of the rear wing opening has needed to be added to the entrance wing doing one thing just like stability the vitality calls for of the brand new vehicles with their new hybrid engines.
From 2026, there will probably be a ‘push-to-pass’ system that provides an additional enhance {of electrical} vitality for the automotive behind. It is arguably much more synthetic than DRS, and whether or not it is going to work is way from the one query hanging over the brand new guidelines.
