Originally Posted by
tifosi1993
DRS is absolutely vital, while it used to be intrusive and artificial. Sure it is a bit flawed, but no one can deny its purpose.
Now before I go about the necessity of the DRS, let me add this few bits: F1 cars need mechanical and aero to get around corners quickly. Mechanical grip is all about cars suspension geometry and weight, plus how the vehicle dynamics work the tyres. But it comes at a cost to weight, which means slower acceleration and bad under-breaking. Aero grip on the other hand doesn't require adding weight, making the car lighter. That's why F1 cars of 70's or 80's were so heavy, they had pretty good mechanical grip but lacked any meaningful aero grip.
But there's one major drawback of aero grip, and we all know what that is: 'dirty air'. When current generation F1 cars, which produces massive downforce hence aero grip, follows another F1 car close behind, the airflow over the rear car is disrupted, reducing the effectiveness of its aerodynamics. This translates to reduced performance and more tyre degradation. And as aero became more and more important, was passing became more difficult.
DRS was implemented in 2011 to try to make up for this, whether people like it or not. People hate it because it got rid of the thing people used to complain about. I'm one of them and I was never been a fan of the infamous Trulli Trains, where who ever got stuck behind Trulli will try to pass him for a lap or two, if they don't succeed then they give up, back off to save fuel and try to jump him by pitting later. DRS on the other hand made sure we the fans would get consistent attack-defense racing.
Yes, it made passing “easier”. But, you can also look at it from the perspective of it trying to make up for the inherent performance disadvantage you must to drive through while trying to pass. And I mean, how much talk has there been about the DRS last year or the year before? To me last years racing was pretty good, and I'm sure most will agree on this.
So DRS is here to stay, unless people want to go back to 10-12secs/lap slower car with heavy in-fancies on mechanical grip, something like nascar. But then, F1 wouldn't be regarded as the pinnacle of motor racing.
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