DRS or the new Active Aero. Good or just okay

Reduce the power to become manageable without excessive downforce.
I am still surprised the FIA doesn't restrict downforce, by giving maximum figure for each axle.
It would be very easy to police with onboard sensors as well.

 

I don't disagree but modern F1 is nothing like vintage racing of any kind. We can't even look at the supposed glory years of the 70s, 80s or 90s because nobody wants to talk about the range in driver talent was huge compared to now, and the gaps between cars was often seconds a lap. Add in there were way more mistakes and mechanical failures and it's just not even comparable.

Like or not, DRS was affective. It immediately tripled the amount of overtakes we saw during a race. That's a success even if it's artificial.

The 2022 cars were supposed to make an enormous improvement in following. What did they claim, something like 40% improvement to the following car? It certainly was better in the first year, and slowly teams developed more and more and following became more and more difficult.

If you took away DRS in modern we simply wouldn't see any passing. Drivers would have to dive bomb from 50 meters back just at a chance. I hate dive bombs and pushing people off the track.

I'm sure it's a touch job to find the perfect distance in the DRS zone for the following car to close up the distance lost while following a car within 1 second. Sometimes its not long enough, sometimes its too long.

 

weren't you the advocate of not going backwards and having less limitations on the cars?

Basically you are saying we need to go back to engines with half the power to be safe in cars that resemble that of the 60s where aero didn't really exist yet. Then restrict each car in the process.

 

No, I am not saying that at all. Limit doesn't mean eliminate.
What we have seen in the last 20 years is an uncontroled increase of downforce to solve traction issues.
Maybe racing would be more attractive if the cars weren't "glued" to the track, and drivers skills came back as the determinant factor in performance. Just an idea ...

 

I agree with that; DRS is a necessary evil in a formula that give too much freedom to aeros.

 

You can answer your question by looking at other series. How's F2, F3, F4, Indy Cars, etc? The driver talent gap between best and worst is much much greater in the feeder series, so account for that.

I tell ya I wouldn't be watching F1 if they were slower than any other road racing cars on the planet. Some of you want cars that would be 20 seconds a lap slower it seems.

 

I remember an era in the 60s, when Sportscars were faster than F1.
The 1.5 liter formula between 1961 and 1965 gave us Jim Clark and also 2 Ferrari drivers WDC.
It couldn't be that bad ...

 

Wasn't Group C cars faster at one point too?

I don't think F1 ever slowed down to be slower than sports cars or other series.

I still don't know why we are comparing modern and future F1 with a distant memory of how things were 50 or 60 years ago.

I agree with everyone that there is a problem in current F1. I just wholeheartedly believe there is not a simple fix for it.

 

The F1 rules now are full of contradictions; that's the problem IMO. A mixture of traditions and modern technologies that don't blend.
Accepting enormous front and rear wings to keep the cars on the ground but insisting on open wheels is contradictary, IMO.
Large open wheels create enormous drags that aerodynamists fight with ever more complicated devices, winglets, bargeboards, etc ...
Aero research swallows a large part of the design budget in most teams: Now the FIA restricts it !!
The second generation of CanAm cars gave us a clue of what F1 could become: enclosed wheels monoposto with minimal aero.
But the FIA dismissed the concept ...

 

Eliminate DRS, restrict the aero, reduce the size and weight, drop the hybrid engines and allow a variety of NA and turbo engines...then give the teams open testing so they can properly develope and test the cars. Within one year we will again be breaking lap records, and have real racing.