For those who weren’t around back then: The 2009 aero regs introduced multi-element front wings. These new wings allowed for significantly more downforce allowing for cars to handle more power before losing grip. However, when an attacker got within a second or two of someone they’d start to lose all that new grip and power due to dirty air. This was a tremendous disadvantage to an attacker to the point where faster (on paper) cars would just get stuck behind slower ones.
Two years later in 2011, DRS was introduced to “promote passing”. It didn’t directly reduce the dirty air, but it gave enough of an advantage to an attacker to offset the disadvantage of dirty air. This was pretty controversial initially with some calling it “push to pass”, but over time we have mostly either become used to it or it is the only thing we’ve known.
The new 2021 aero regulations have been very successful in cleaning up dirty air. The disadvantage to attacking has been significantly reduced as they can get much closer before losing all that grip. Rather than reduce the advantage of DRS to compensate, the FIA has been adding in additional DRS zones. They have now reduced the advantage to slower cars, while simultaneously increasing the advantage to faster cars. This is just exacerbating the already existing performance gaps between teams and I’m pretty sure we all want the grid to be more competitive.
In my opinion, this is causing the grid to spread out and settle into position too early on into races. The remainder/end of races are fairly boring unless something chaotic happens like weather or a safety car. Desert race with long straights? :yawn: DRS was a quick and easy solution, but I think the FIA should be reducing DRS zones at a minimum, if not just remove DRS all-together.
tldr; DRS was a bandaid. The FIA should also reduce/remove the bandaid now that they’ve reduced dirty air.
I honestly don’t really see the problem with having DRS. Yes it can be a little boring when cars can just breeze past but it does bring some additional tactics that the drivers can use, specifically around taking the right moment to over take as to not allow the overtaken car to get another round of DRS. A recent example is Austria where Verstappen timed his overtakes so that the other car couldn’t battle back, but Perez kept trying to overtake too early, and other car would then end up getting DRS on him and then the overtake would fail.
There was a race at Abu Dhabi (I can’t remember the year, but it was a few years ago now) where DRS was “broken” (I’m convinced it wasn’t, but an experiment to see what a racing would be like without it) and everyone just got stuck in a train. Faster cars were stuck behind others and I think there were 0 overtakes.
If the race was a few years ago, I think the point still applies regarding the need for DRS. With the current regs, the ground effect cars are less sensitive to the dirty air.
Abu Dhabi isn’t a great circuit, it’s improved on what it was, but it didn’t get the nickname “Monaco in the Desert” for nothing.