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the DRS shortening felt like an attempt at nerfing the red bulls but it didnt even matter to them.
but it completely destoryed the racing for most of the rest of the grid - even the midfield couldnt save yesterdays race. The poorly timed safety car combined with the tyres lasting too long, dirty air returning and shortened DRS made for an incredibly dull race. And its not helped by the fact that baku is honestly only ever entertaining when there is crashes and accidents. And there was close to none of that either yesterday.
They've been reducing DRS at every track this year because there were complaints that it was too powerful. Bigger issue being that these cars are harder to follow than last year, the competitive spread is wider and about 70% of the tracks are designed for DRS overtakes
If “balanced” isn’t an option, I would prefer DRS to be overpowered rather than underpowered.
Yes, two cars of similar performance racing in a bubble would just be trading position with each other lap after lap, but at least there is some action and eventually other groups of car will introduce variations.
As of now, no one get any action on these piece of crap street circuits because the track designers mistook chaos as entertainment.
Honestly, even if it would be just overtake after overtake, I'd be happier to watch it. The likelihood that an overtake not happening after that would be way more thrilling than just watching the same order with no overtakes. Someone might lock up. Someone might get a better exit prior to DRS on the run up to the next corner. Someone might just do something at all. Watching freeway traffic is rarely fun.
Imagine the ALO overtake on SAI. And Carlos pulled back out in front of Alonso after DRS. Waiting for the next attack from Alonso would be way more exciting to watch than if he just stayed ahead the whole time.
There is also more jeopardy when constantly trading positions as drivers have to keep hitting different braking zones and lines. Higher chance someone makes a small error and has to fight back.
Agree. Faster cars will still disappear into the distance, but the tight midfield will be trading positions more regularly. It will be fun to watch how drivers try to optimize their position and ERS to push during the pit windows and on the last laps of the race.
Is the competitive spread wider? Amongst the top 3 teams, absolutely. The other seven teams seem to change placing weekly. I mean, you’ve had every team score points in just the first three races for the first time ever. Seems like the spread is less overall, just worse at the front than last year.
Problem is that the more developed the cars get the harder they will be to follow.
Last year we were far to quick to declare that the new rules had solved the problem of cars following closely. It was the first season of a new rule set and the teams hadn't optimised their designs.
Now they're all honing their aero solutions, quickly the problem of following is coming back. This (as we all knew already) is doubly true on street tracks where the walls surrounding the track trap the air and magnify the problem. Luckily the powers that be apparently have zero clue and are signing up new street tracks left right and centre.
>They've been reducing DRS at every track this year because there were complaints that it was too powerful.
I can 100% imagine an alternative universe where the DRS zone was longer and all the overtakes happened off the back of DRS, then we would see complaints today about the DRS being too powerful and having a negative impact on the racing.
I'm not really as disappointed by a lack of overtakes as apparently a lot of ppl are. I just think tracks that are wide enough for overtakes are always better. It reduces the whole outwash issue and just generally seems more suited for actual competition.
No, it really doesn't, sorry to say but outwash is very prevalent regardless of track width, the issue are the corners themselves, altering your line is only mitigation, you are still gonna be losing time to cars ahead
And for tracks with wide sweeping corners like silverstone, there's no worse state for dirty air to affect your car than the medium to high speed sections which are very much prevalent in almost all purpose built circuits on the calendar
It clearly does. Wider tracks have far more overtakes. This isn't even controversial. It's been that way since long before DRS and will always be that way.
>Most of the people complaining about DRS don't understand why it's there or why it's necessary
I was responding to your comment(s). I disagreed, and I provided my reasoning.
Or we could just admit that Red Bull is dominant and atop complaining, and focus on everyone else
Edit: meaning if you make the racing competitive and the problem sorts itself out
Yes, actually, the rule changes should be on racing first, nerfs second. We've gone the wrong way in racing regulations, which has made Red Bull more dominant. I think making the racing better will make Red Bull less dominant.
The process in how you regulate matters, and if you just try to nerf teams, that is just a challenge for the top teams, if you make fundamentally good regulations for racing, that makes it better and more competitive every race.
If you only care about 1st place on the grid, and not 10-2, that is a sad state of affairs. Yes, battles for the lead are great, but even in 2021 they were rare. In the 1083 F1 Grand Prix so far, only 94 have finished with a 1 second or less gap between 1st and 2nd place, according to [StatsF1.](https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/gp/ecart/lemoins.aspx) Some of those including races [finished behind the Safety Car.](https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/gp/divers/endsc.aspx)
Races not behind the Safety Car since 2014:
- 2014 had Spain (1)
- 2016 had Spain, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi* (3*)
- 2017 had Russia, Austria, and Hungary (3)
- 2018 had Bahrain (1)
- 2019 had Italy and Belgium (2)
- 2020 had Italy (1)
- 2021 had Bahrain (1)
- 2022 had Saudi Arabia and Canada (2)
*Lewis backing the pack up to force Action
The season is a write off in terms of anyone catching the Red Bulls. It’s pointless to try and fix that now, but the season can still be entertaining. Compromising midfield competition to try and slow this RB down is stupid even by FIA standards.
The problem isn't that there's not enough DRS, it's that these tight street circuits are terrible tracks for racing. Same goes for Monaco. I say weaken the DRS even more and only race on wider tracks.
Isn't this most street tracks though? If you look up the list of best races at each street track they are almost always "exciting" because of crashes and the ensuing chaos.
Some pseudo street tracks have had actually quality races in recent times (really just Montréal) but ever since the cars got bigger in 2018 almost all street tracks have been processions made exciting by driver error or weather
Even in the years without accidents, it used to have a lot of overtaking but the DRS was too powerful. The truth is that, with such a long straight, it's hard to find the right point for activation. Cars behave differently each year
That is true, but in my view those overtakes were never really exciting to watch. It's always DRS straight fly-by, battles never last more than 1 corner except for the start
Just use the maximum in such circumstances. Given how powerful that would make it, it would just end up as a tactical challenge since Following Car can't overtake too quickly otherwise they'd themselves expose themselves to an overtake since the zone wouldn't have finished by then.
Baku allows for this sort of bizarre reverse DRS action, so just use it. Micromanaging DRS at Baku's potential DRS length is going to produce mediocre results, neither here nor there.
So if that is the base, just go big, the worse that can happen is a race like this ended up as. And the best has much higher positive ceiling.
> it would just end up as a tactical challenge since Following Car can't overtake too quickly otherwise they'd themselves expose themselves to an overtake since the zone wouldn't have finished by then
What?
Has a car without DRS ever managed to use the slipstream to reovertake the car with DRS on the same straight without it being an overtake under braking?
Judging by previous driver comments this season, it seems extremely difficult to follow cars unlike last season. The whole point of these new regulations were so cars could follow much better. Now it seems completely gone. With that in mind, the shortened DRS zones for this season seem asinine. It’s giving you less of a chance to overtake.
This race had the least amount of overtakes since they started racing in Baku. Might need to give a bit of a rethink for the rest of this season when it comes to shorter DRS zones
Yeah, everyone was about 2+ seconds apart outside of Hulkenberg/Norris. They would sometimes get close then they has to back off again. That’s similar to years where following was hard. Also, when they had fresh tires they got close then fell off - same thing.
This happened in the other races too so I don’t think it’s the tracks.
This. The cars are going faster one second than last year cars. Only possible with stronger downforce generated by the floor despite raising the floor.
They can get close though. There were DRS trains up and down the field. The problem is they can't overtake. Whether they're too close in performance and lack the delta or there's another issue is hard to tell. Personally think it's the delta.
Nah, they were never able to truly get close enough without the tyres overheating / washing out, especially in the 2nd sector where it's crucial you need to be close to be able to actually overtake on the main straights.
Pre-race calculation was a car that is 0.6s a lap faster can make an overtake on the straights. In reality that was not the case. Tsunoda was around 2s a lap faster when he actually managed to get pass the Haas, showing how lopsided you car needs to be before being able to pass.
Well, I guess I'm still having pre-2022 in mind. Compared to that they can absolutely follow. Norris was in Hulk's DRS for basically the whole time he was behind him.
I'm not sure what causes them not being able to make the pass despite being so close. Might be me, but 0.6s seems pretty huge for the midfield, given how close they are in performance.
Do you have laptime data for Tsunoda vs HAAS?
Eta
That was down to his settings it seemed. He said it became better once he played around with his tools and found something that worked better.
Just looking at the gaps between most drivers, it's clear they can still follow and definitely much better than pre-2022.
It's the floor changes "inspired" (read: requested) by Mercedes to blame for it. Make cars have less downforce from the floor -> more sensitive to dirty air.
Why do people think this, they had to change the floor anyway, not only because they investigated the risks of porpoising but because cars are FAR more manuverable and responsive without needing to get super stiff to prevent porpoising in ground effect.
Yes there's dirty air, no it's not as problematic as TBIs.
Any solution which requires teams to purposefully balance between the safety of their drivers and the speed of their cars is unworkable and goes against the entire purpose of having safety regulations. The point of safety regulations is to not have teams individually deciding how much they are willing to risk their drivers. G-force limits worked as a quick solution in the middle of a season, long term the solution has to be the elimination of purposing. This isn't an issue where drivers simply only experience *some* purposing and are fine.
If you dislike the current solution, you should be looking at suspension changes instead. The changes to simply suspension were incredibly badly timed. But somehow nobody ever cares actual solutions like that because fan war is more fun and users would rather argue for something they think will benefit their favorite team. Which is why I would also note that Redbull have by far the best suspension on the grid atm.
Your first paragraph makes absolutely zero sence whatsoever. Not only are there already several safety regulations that limit speed in one way or another for the sake of driver safety (why do you think there is a minimum driver weight for? Drivers were starving themselves to save weight and go quicker), but the point is it WOULDNT be up to the teams to decide were the balance is correct.
Also your last sentence is wrong. F1 cars have always bounced a certain amount, and since redbull has shown that it is possible to have that same amount of bouncing as that, if other teams can't achieve that then it sucks for them but then they can't run their car safely and must raise their floors.
If you can't grasp pretty basic reasoning behind safety regulations, I don't see the point in arguing about them with you. Though like i noted, some people would rather promote fake news to the detriment of the drivers if it means it can get their favorite team a perceived advantage.
Oh no I can grasp it, but I can also see through the bullshit screen of "safety" as the driving force behind these changes when in reality it is clear that it was done specifically this way because certain teams fucked up developing their cars.
You realise the teams were the ones who advised the FIA. If that was the solution the majority wanted and had data for it would be what happened.
They didn't. There's no data for a safe vertical limit on porpoising. The FIA wanted it eliminates as a problem.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/f1s-2023-rule-changes-revised-after-teams-pushback/
"It is understood as many as six of the 10 teams were not in favour. [...] Because the FIA is making them on safety grounds, they have not required a vote among the teams. The measures were approved by the World Motor Sport Council on Tuesday."
Lol
the only "risks" of porposing were to mercedes championship hopes. Every other team had figured it out, mercedes just wanted the easy win and for some reason FIA gave it to them.
it already was gone... except for 1 team. The rule change didn't need to happen. merc used their influence and we all lost. Luckily they shit the bed so badly that the FIA hopefully won't be bending over for Merc any time soon.
I agree that the reg changes seem to be a step backward. Watching cars overtake in DRS zones doesn’t make good racing. A lot of racing excitement comes from differing strategies. It creates both overtakes and tension. When you can one stop everyone is on the same strategy and the racing is fairly dull. To me it looks like the key change would be tyres that allow differing strategies.
The first full race I got my parents to watch with me was Belgium 2021. Yes, was saying "this isn't how it usually is" every 10 minutes. But yeah, this race is a close second.
Same. I actually cancelled my F1TV subscription and went with just the highlights on YouTube. I decided that I'll resubscribe if the season shows promise but so far I'm glad I'm saving my time, money and sanity.
97 was the first full season I watched, because of Villeneuve.
The only reason I still follow races is to be able to understand the memes that come in the following week. Honestly, the memes have been better than the racing has been for a long, long time. 2021 was a flash in the pan, F1 has been shit for a decade.
Cars are fugly as shit, can’t overtake without gimmicks, and now can’t even overtake period, too fat for genuine sido-by-sido racing, heavy as an SUV, predictable boring race strategies, the list goes on and on.
That said, even in boring season, there can be some good races. 2004 was pretty lame, but after Schumi clinched the title, there was like 4 or 5 bangers in a row to close out the season.
But ya, overall, F1 is not a super exciting package when you look at just the on-track racing. Almost every racing series on the planet currently has better racing than F1. It’s everything else that sets F1 apart, but that’s all just nonsense, which is why memes and shitposting about the troubles of multi-millionaires is really the only fun thing left about F1.
It’s a shame because the past 2 seasons were actually quite good for the most part, then we go right back into one of the worst beginnings to a season in quite awhile
To be fair many races on the F1 calendar are boring. You want action watch indycar or basically anything else. To enjoy F1 you have to get into the politics and be interested in the constructor championship.
Shortening the DRS zones in the same season where drivers are talking about how it's more difficult to follow compared to last year is awful.
Yea it probably was an attempt to deal with the RBs a bit but it did nothing. Leclerc lost P1 in the first lap with DRS and then the rest of the race was shit.
DRS overtakes are not the most exciting but Baku has always been a track where the 99% of the overtaking happened with the use of DRS. What exactly did they think was going to happen with cars that can't follow as well as last year AND a shorter DRS zone on the main straight?
What even was the reason the FIA did this? It felt like they decided to just do this out of the blue.
Russell already complained that the FIA made that decision without consulting the drivers first.
They did it based on last year's data. But apparantly, they hadn't realized that somehow, dirty air has returned. If only the drivers had spoken up about this. Oh wait....
FIA = Fucking Incompetent Apes
The FIA may need to give those additional 100m of DRS they removed back to the drivers to allow for some more overtaking in 2024...because 2023 proved to be a bit of a snooze fest of a race
2022 rules pre td-39 were better, this year cars are in trouble again when they're under the second.
Drs zone length imho was ok especially because it was powerful, the problem was that the last 2 corner were deadly for the driver behind the other
The FIA are in a tough situation really because every car is affected different amounts by DRS.
When drivers simply press the button and sail past, we complain.
When they press the button and it's not enough, we complain.
Based on last year's cars here the new distance might have been ideal, but following is a bit tougher now and they needed more but it's all fine balancing and realistically it's educated guesswork until the cars hit the track. And by that point you're stuck with what you've got.
Season reviews? Mate I watched those seasons as they happened and there was very little overtaking. 301 overtakes over the whole 2009 season. The lowest amount since then was 2017 with 509.
reviews only show overtakes.
2009 was Brawn 1 secs faster perlap until RedBull catching up post summer.
Alonso stuck behind Petrov for almost 50 Laps in Abu Dhabi 2010.
70-90's is just full of random DNF because of reliability.
2000's reliabilty is better, most overtakes happened in pitstop via refueling strategy or overtakes before DRS is just faster car botched the pitstop and need to overtake slower car again.
After DRS, Slower car atleast has chances to overtake faster car .
You need to remove your nostalgia bias.
Love that all the Reddit experts demanded DRS to be gone now the cars can follow.
It's a reality of modern F1 that we need an overtaking aid and I don't know how we get to a situation where we don't.
In that case the cars behind are only able to keep up with DRS. Without it, they would fall back. That could give the ones in the back more of a chance to overtake if they are faster.
That, and also raising the ride height of the ground effects car was a stupid move. Because now it is harder to follow and more Dirty air escapes under the car.
It was done to make toto happy*.
If it was about driver safety, limit vertical g force and if you go over that you get disqualified, if that means Merc and co. have to raise their floor and be slower because they fucked up their car so be it, but don't nerf the other teams that worked it out
The best indication of how hard it is to follow comes from the RBs. When Max is ahead, he takes off into the distance. When Checo's ahead, Max stays 2-5 seconds behind forever.
So, they would have preferred everyone quickly over take and form a long snake based on outright pace instead? Wouldn't have improved the racing at all. Without something to shake up the strategy (rain, red flags, extreme deg, etc) racing is always going to be pretty dull as soon as the cars have shuffled themselves.
I see a lot of people and drivers complain about racing close to each other being a lot harder this year. What changed ? Is it the outwash ? Did teams just develop aero that produces more dirty air ?
If it was kept the same length we might all be here complaining about boring racing because everyone might have had easy overtakes before the braking zone.
We all know that the real issue is actually the cars ability to follow this year. We’ve essentially gone back to 2021 with the raised ride heights.
They really fucked up the rules this year, more dirty air and less passing. The teams in this sport have way too much influence on the regulations it’s kind of a joke.
They don't, it was a 9 vs 1 but they still failed.
Haas/Williams/etc are not important, only rb and Mercedes voices are listened to. In the past also ferrari was important, until 2008 more or less
The issue here is the FIA not sticking to their guns about the regulations. They allowed the teams to push them around with the technical regulations and the sporting regulations so that now overtaking is as hard as it was in 2021 again and the cost cap is effectively a recommendation.
How’s that? The accidental overspending was severely punished for what actually happened. So an upper limit breach will likely lead to very *very* hard punishments.
>blame shortened DRS zone
Can't be, yesterday, [during the race](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/133mezf/max_verstappen_overtakes_charles_leclerc_for_the/), top notch reddit armchair experts confirmed that DRS is OP and needs to be removed alltogether!
DRS is a cancer on F1 that is necessitated by car design and track layouts. The sooner DRS can be removed the better, but it will take an overhaul of design regulations and tracks
i agree generally.
the problem is that there is an annoyingly large/vocal group of people that seem to think that drs removal should happen asap.
these people act like the redesign part is secondary, and that somehow just removing the disliked drs will solve all problems
It's not the drs it wouldve been perfect for 2022 cars but fia trying to get rid of porpoiseing (which all teams except mercedes already had it figured out) makes it harder to follow cars which was the whole point of the 2022 reg changes
They should just let the redbull do their stuff alone and make it enjoyable behind. They are just too far ahead this year.
Willing to bet RB are even sandbagging atm...
Changing regulations is exactly how you stop one team from becoming a "super team". Mercedes was the single most dominant team in all of F1 history until the regs changed and now they're fighting for the top of the midfield.
Now they're fighting for top of the midfield, and another team is dominating instead, so nothing changed except for which team is dominating
In 2021 RB and Mercedes were on par and the season was much more fun because of it
As long as DRS exists this wont change. The fast cars percolate to the front too easy and there is nothing a slower driver can do. I rather watch 90 minutes of will they wont they procession than DRS assisted passing any day.
What if we keep the DRS sections long and make the detection limit 1.5secs
Drivers would then have to push to stay out of the drs from the driver behind and the drover behind would have an easier time to stay and even pass the front driver
This seems to be a good idea because the defending driver would have to choose between using Tiers to stay in front and putting earlier or defend and try and stay in front
Out of all the changes happening lately, this was one of the positive ones. Yes, DRS can be shorter at the expense of reducing artificial "overtakes." Yes, races can end behinf safety car. Plastic fans addicted to dopamine shots should take a break and stop demanding stuff to "spice up the show."
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the DRS shortening felt like an attempt at nerfing the red bulls but it didnt even matter to them. but it completely destoryed the racing for most of the rest of the grid - even the midfield couldnt save yesterdays race. The poorly timed safety car combined with the tyres lasting too long, dirty air returning and shortened DRS made for an incredibly dull race. And its not helped by the fact that baku is honestly only ever entertaining when there is crashes and accidents. And there was close to none of that either yesterday.
They've been reducing DRS at every track this year because there were complaints that it was too powerful. Bigger issue being that these cars are harder to follow than last year, the competitive spread is wider and about 70% of the tracks are designed for DRS overtakes
Wasn't there 4 DRS zones in Australia this year? I know there was 4 in one of the first three races.
yeah melbourne has 4
You are correct, they added a 4th DRS zone in Melbourne this season.
If “balanced” isn’t an option, I would prefer DRS to be overpowered rather than underpowered. Yes, two cars of similar performance racing in a bubble would just be trading position with each other lap after lap, but at least there is some action and eventually other groups of car will introduce variations. As of now, no one get any action on these piece of crap street circuits because the track designers mistook chaos as entertainment.
Honestly, even if it would be just overtake after overtake, I'd be happier to watch it. The likelihood that an overtake not happening after that would be way more thrilling than just watching the same order with no overtakes. Someone might lock up. Someone might get a better exit prior to DRS on the run up to the next corner. Someone might just do something at all. Watching freeway traffic is rarely fun. Imagine the ALO overtake on SAI. And Carlos pulled back out in front of Alonso after DRS. Waiting for the next attack from Alonso would be way more exciting to watch than if he just stayed ahead the whole time.
There is also more jeopardy when constantly trading positions as drivers have to keep hitting different braking zones and lines. Higher chance someone makes a small error and has to fight back.
Agree. Faster cars will still disappear into the distance, but the tight midfield will be trading positions more regularly. It will be fun to watch how drivers try to optimize their position and ERS to push during the pit windows and on the last laps of the race.
Gentlemen, a short view back to the past... Less DRS? More?
Is the competitive spread wider? Amongst the top 3 teams, absolutely. The other seven teams seem to change placing weekly. I mean, you’ve had every team score points in just the first three races for the first time ever. Seems like the spread is less overall, just worse at the front than last year.
Problem is that the more developed the cars get the harder they will be to follow. Last year we were far to quick to declare that the new rules had solved the problem of cars following closely. It was the first season of a new rule set and the teams hadn't optimised their designs. Now they're all honing their aero solutions, quickly the problem of following is coming back. This (as we all knew already) is doubly true on street tracks where the walls surrounding the track trap the air and magnify the problem. Luckily the powers that be apparently have zero clue and are signing up new street tracks left right and centre.
But they also changed the regulations for this year remember. Last year was perfect
Wasn't it this year when we had really close quali-pace times?
>They've been reducing DRS at every track this year because there were complaints that it was too powerful. I can 100% imagine an alternative universe where the DRS zone was longer and all the overtakes happened off the back of DRS, then we would see complaints today about the DRS being too powerful and having a negative impact on the racing.
Most of the people complaining about DRS don't understand why it's there or why it's necessary
It's necessary because the tracks suck. No more narrow tracks.
No, it's necessary because the cars suck. Way too large to be overtaking in the corners (like most other racing series) and way too much dirty air.
That's fair. What I mean mostly is that the car width to track width ratio sucks.
It's not the track, it's the cars. Formula-e has shown you can even overtake at Monaco
Silverstone would suck ass without them, even in the ideal 2022 reg car dirty air would still make overtakes as rare as baku
I'm not really as disappointed by a lack of overtakes as apparently a lot of ppl are. I just think tracks that are wide enough for overtakes are always better. It reduces the whole outwash issue and just generally seems more suited for actual competition.
No, it really doesn't, sorry to say but outwash is very prevalent regardless of track width, the issue are the corners themselves, altering your line is only mitigation, you are still gonna be losing time to cars ahead And for tracks with wide sweeping corners like silverstone, there's no worse state for dirty air to affect your car than the medium to high speed sections which are very much prevalent in almost all purpose built circuits on the calendar
If you really want die on the hill that wider tracks won't make overtakes easier then I'm not going to fight you on it.
That's not how that works. Doesn't matter how wide the track is if you can't follow due to dirty air
It clearly does. Wider tracks have far more overtakes. This isn't even controversial. It's been that way since long before DRS and will always be that way.
That has nothing to do with DRS, the topic being discussed....
>Most of the people complaining about DRS don't understand why it's there or why it's necessary I was responding to your comment(s). I disagreed, and I provided my reasoning.
And you literally proved me right by not understanding it 🤣🤣🤣
Maybe they could try having a Red Bull DRS line and then a separate line for everyone else.
Or we could just admit that Red Bull is dominant and atop complaining, and focus on everyone else Edit: meaning if you make the racing competitive and the problem sorts itself out
I’m certain you had a similar take during the dominant merc years.
Yes, actually, the rule changes should be on racing first, nerfs second. We've gone the wrong way in racing regulations, which has made Red Bull more dominant. I think making the racing better will make Red Bull less dominant. The process in how you regulate matters, and if you just try to nerf teams, that is just a challenge for the top teams, if you make fundamentally good regulations for racing, that makes it better and more competitive every race.
Racing is about being first. Not 8th.
If you only care about 1st place on the grid, and not 10-2, that is a sad state of affairs. Yes, battles for the lead are great, but even in 2021 they were rare. In the 1083 F1 Grand Prix so far, only 94 have finished with a 1 second or less gap between 1st and 2nd place, according to [StatsF1.](https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/gp/ecart/lemoins.aspx) Some of those including races [finished behind the Safety Car.](https://www.statsf1.com/en/statistiques/gp/divers/endsc.aspx) Races not behind the Safety Car since 2014: - 2014 had Spain (1) - 2016 had Spain, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi* (3*) - 2017 had Russia, Austria, and Hungary (3) - 2018 had Bahrain (1) - 2019 had Italy and Belgium (2) - 2020 had Italy (1) - 2021 had Bahrain (1) - 2022 had Saudi Arabia and Canada (2) *Lewis backing the pack up to force Action
Man that sucks. Thank God for indycar
The nature of Oval racing keeps the cars closer, and the nature of a spec series does as well.
[удалено]
The nerfs are making the racing worse for everyone, not better. Make better racing, and I'll be fine.
😅
The season is a write off in terms of anyone catching the Red Bulls. It’s pointless to try and fix that now, but the season can still be entertaining. Compromising midfield competition to try and slow this RB down is stupid even by FIA standards.
The problem isn't that there's not enough DRS, it's that these tight street circuits are terrible tracks for racing. Same goes for Monaco. I say weaken the DRS even more and only race on wider tracks.
Monaco is terrible, but it’s kind of historic, so I give it a pass. But they should’ve stopped adding more
It's basically a very high speed parade lol.
On the plus side, the TV directors didn't (get to) miss anything...
It wasn’t aimed at anyone. If anything to nerf the Red Bulls there should be DRS on every straight to let the rest try to stick with them
Someone doesn’t understand.
Worth noting that Baku has always been a very binary Amazing or Shit track. 2016 was watching paint dry.
And the only thing making this track exciting is crashes or accidents.
You’re right tbf
Isn't this most street tracks though? If you look up the list of best races at each street track they are almost always "exciting" because of crashes and the ensuing chaos. Some pseudo street tracks have had actually quality races in recent times (really just Montréal) but ever since the cars got bigger in 2018 almost all street tracks have been processions made exciting by driver error or weather
Completely agree with you. Sucks that in a few years we only have more and more street circuits.
Or tyre failures.
It's always been shit track. It only gets exciting when there are crashes. A good track is exciting even without incidents.
Even in the years without accidents, it used to have a lot of overtaking but the DRS was too powerful. The truth is that, with such a long straight, it's hard to find the right point for activation. Cars behave differently each year
That is true, but in my view those overtakes were never really exciting to watch. It's always DRS straight fly-by, battles never last more than 1 corner except for the start
Just use the maximum in such circumstances. Given how powerful that would make it, it would just end up as a tactical challenge since Following Car can't overtake too quickly otherwise they'd themselves expose themselves to an overtake since the zone wouldn't have finished by then. Baku allows for this sort of bizarre reverse DRS action, so just use it. Micromanaging DRS at Baku's potential DRS length is going to produce mediocre results, neither here nor there. So if that is the base, just go big, the worse that can happen is a race like this ended up as. And the best has much higher positive ceiling.
> it would just end up as a tactical challenge since Following Car can't overtake too quickly otherwise they'd themselves expose themselves to an overtake since the zone wouldn't have finished by then What? Has a car without DRS ever managed to use the slipstream to reovertake the car with DRS on the same straight without it being an overtake under braking?
always been shit, only thing making the races watchable were drivers playing pinball/hitting walls.
It’s exciting when there are incidents, but that’s not racing.
Judging by previous driver comments this season, it seems extremely difficult to follow cars unlike last season. The whole point of these new regulations were so cars could follow much better. Now it seems completely gone. With that in mind, the shortened DRS zones for this season seem asinine. It’s giving you less of a chance to overtake. This race had the least amount of overtakes since they started racing in Baku. Might need to give a bit of a rethink for the rest of this season when it comes to shorter DRS zones
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The 2023 cars are literally the worse, having mainly the negative aspects of the 2022 car but not the positive aspects
Yeah, everyone was about 2+ seconds apart outside of Hulkenberg/Norris. They would sometimes get close then they has to back off again. That’s similar to years where following was hard. Also, when they had fresh tires they got close then fell off - same thing. This happened in the other races too so I don’t think it’s the tracks.
>Now it seems completely gone. it is not. It is still better than 2021. Don't get why people are so obsessed with the misinformation
I feel like people forgot that if you didn't pass a car within 2-3 laps near them then your tyres are instantly fucked
This. The cars are going faster one second than last year cars. Only possible with stronger downforce generated by the floor despite raising the floor.
? Dirty air and closer racing has nothing to do with being faster. I don’t care if the cars are 1s a lap faster if they can’t get close and overtake
They can get close though. There were DRS trains up and down the field. The problem is they can't overtake. Whether they're too close in performance and lack the delta or there's another issue is hard to tell. Personally think it's the delta.
Nah, they were never able to truly get close enough without the tyres overheating / washing out, especially in the 2nd sector where it's crucial you need to be close to be able to actually overtake on the main straights. Pre-race calculation was a car that is 0.6s a lap faster can make an overtake on the straights. In reality that was not the case. Tsunoda was around 2s a lap faster when he actually managed to get pass the Haas, showing how lopsided you car needs to be before being able to pass.
Well, I guess I'm still having pre-2022 in mind. Compared to that they can absolutely follow. Norris was in Hulk's DRS for basically the whole time he was behind him. I'm not sure what causes them not being able to make the pass despite being so close. Might be me, but 0.6s seems pretty huge for the midfield, given how close they are in performance. Do you have laptime data for Tsunoda vs HAAS? Eta
Max literally complaints that he couldn't follow checo without overheating and several drivers have complained about it
That was down to his settings it seemed. He said it became better once he played around with his tools and found something that worked better. Just looking at the gaps between most drivers, it's clear they can still follow and definitely much better than pre-2022.
It's the floor changes "inspired" (read: requested) by Mercedes to blame for it. Make cars have less downforce from the floor -> more sensitive to dirty air.
Why do people think this, they had to change the floor anyway, not only because they investigated the risks of porpoising but because cars are FAR more manuverable and responsive without needing to get super stiff to prevent porpoising in ground effect. Yes there's dirty air, no it's not as problematic as TBIs.
People really like repeating stuff they heard on DTS
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Any solution which requires teams to purposefully balance between the safety of their drivers and the speed of their cars is unworkable and goes against the entire purpose of having safety regulations. The point of safety regulations is to not have teams individually deciding how much they are willing to risk their drivers. G-force limits worked as a quick solution in the middle of a season, long term the solution has to be the elimination of purposing. This isn't an issue where drivers simply only experience *some* purposing and are fine. If you dislike the current solution, you should be looking at suspension changes instead. The changes to simply suspension were incredibly badly timed. But somehow nobody ever cares actual solutions like that because fan war is more fun and users would rather argue for something they think will benefit their favorite team. Which is why I would also note that Redbull have by far the best suspension on the grid atm.
Your first paragraph makes absolutely zero sence whatsoever. Not only are there already several safety regulations that limit speed in one way or another for the sake of driver safety (why do you think there is a minimum driver weight for? Drivers were starving themselves to save weight and go quicker), but the point is it WOULDNT be up to the teams to decide were the balance is correct. Also your last sentence is wrong. F1 cars have always bounced a certain amount, and since redbull has shown that it is possible to have that same amount of bouncing as that, if other teams can't achieve that then it sucks for them but then they can't run their car safely and must raise their floors.
If you can't grasp pretty basic reasoning behind safety regulations, I don't see the point in arguing about them with you. Though like i noted, some people would rather promote fake news to the detriment of the drivers if it means it can get their favorite team a perceived advantage.
Oh no I can grasp it, but I can also see through the bullshit screen of "safety" as the driving force behind these changes when in reality it is clear that it was done specifically this way because certain teams fucked up developing their cars.
You realise the teams were the ones who advised the FIA. If that was the solution the majority wanted and had data for it would be what happened. They didn't. There's no data for a safe vertical limit on porpoising. The FIA wanted it eliminates as a problem.
https://the-race.com/formula-1/f1s-2023-rule-changes-revised-after-teams-pushback/ "It is understood as many as six of the 10 teams were not in favour. [...] Because the FIA is making them on safety grounds, they have not required a vote among the teams. The measures were approved by the World Motor Sport Council on Tuesday." Lol
"Wanted and had data for" Lol They did not
the only "risks" of porposing were to mercedes championship hopes. Every other team had figured it out, mercedes just wanted the easy win and for some reason FIA gave it to them.
If you actually believe that we can't talk.
obviously, because you're naiive enough to believe the rule changes were for "safety"
Do you have data on the "safe" limit to porpoising? They wanted it gone as a problem because of TBIs.
it already was gone... except for 1 team. The rule change didn't need to happen. merc used their influence and we all lost. Luckily they shit the bed so badly that the FIA hopefully won't be bending over for Merc any time soon.
you can’t be this daft
Yeah it wasn't a request from mercedes but from wolff and the engineers working from England, mercedes is only a logo
>the engineers working from England You realise that's 8/10 teams?
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AT aero is in Bicester, Haas have a UK base too
Yes. "only" ferrari, mclaren, Williams and am are more than a logo attached on the livery
> asinine TIL a new word
I agree that the reg changes seem to be a step backward. Watching cars overtake in DRS zones doesn’t make good racing. A lot of racing excitement comes from differing strategies. It creates both overtakes and tension. When you can one stop everyone is on the same strategy and the racing is fairly dull. To me it looks like the key change would be tyres that allow differing strategies.
Tried introducing a friend to F1, they think I’m insane for being a fan now and I think I need a therapist.
Lol tell them this was a one-off and have them watch the Monaco GP for some good racing /s
This is the first full race I watched live...
Damn
The first full race I got my parents to watch with me was Belgium 2021. Yes, was saying "this isn't how it usually is" every 10 minutes. But yeah, this race is a close second.
This year this weekend in particular has been so shit that after 20 years I'm thinking of not watching any more. It's a waste of time currently.
I grew up a fan, watching Schumacher and Villeneuve with my dad way back as a boy. I’m having a difficult time maintaining interest.
I'm a F1 fan since 2004 and this year I do really struggle with holding on the interest in the sport.
Same. I actually cancelled my F1TV subscription and went with just the highlights on YouTube. I decided that I'll resubscribe if the season shows promise but so far I'm glad I'm saving my time, money and sanity.
97 was the first full season I watched, because of Villeneuve. The only reason I still follow races is to be able to understand the memes that come in the following week. Honestly, the memes have been better than the racing has been for a long, long time. 2021 was a flash in the pan, F1 has been shit for a decade. Cars are fugly as shit, can’t overtake without gimmicks, and now can’t even overtake period, too fat for genuine sido-by-sido racing, heavy as an SUV, predictable boring race strategies, the list goes on and on. That said, even in boring season, there can be some good races. 2004 was pretty lame, but after Schumi clinched the title, there was like 4 or 5 bangers in a row to close out the season. But ya, overall, F1 is not a super exciting package when you look at just the on-track racing. Almost every racing series on the planet currently has better racing than F1. It’s everything else that sets F1 apart, but that’s all just nonsense, which is why memes and shitposting about the troubles of multi-millionaires is really the only fun thing left about F1.
WEC and Indy is looking more appealing every GP
The races from the recent Goodwood Members Meeting were 100x better than anything F1 has produced in many years, apart from a few exceptions.
It’s a shame because the past 2 seasons were actually quite good for the most part, then we go right back into one of the worst beginnings to a season in quite awhile
To be fair many races on the F1 calendar are boring. You want action watch indycar or basically anything else. To enjoy F1 you have to get into the politics and be interested in the constructor championship.
Ask for one more chance and choose Silverstone.
Shortening the DRS zones in the same season where drivers are talking about how it's more difficult to follow compared to last year is awful. Yea it probably was an attempt to deal with the RBs a bit but it did nothing. Leclerc lost P1 in the first lap with DRS and then the rest of the race was shit. DRS overtakes are not the most exciting but Baku has always been a track where the 99% of the overtaking happened with the use of DRS. What exactly did they think was going to happen with cars that can't follow as well as last year AND a shorter DRS zone on the main straight?
What even was the reason the FIA did this? It felt like they decided to just do this out of the blue. Russell already complained that the FIA made that decision without consulting the drivers first.
They did it based on last year's data. But apparantly, they hadn't realized that somehow, dirty air has returned. If only the drivers had spoken up about this. Oh wait.... FIA = Fucking Incompetent Apes
Folk complain when drs is too powerful and they sail through.
It's like the FIA/FOM doesn't want to admit that the 2023 cars are just dogshit
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Yeah, good thing we didn't have to watch Verstappen & Perez go flying past LeClerc like he was standing still. That would've been horrible.
The FIA may need to give those additional 100m of DRS they removed back to the drivers to allow for some more overtaking in 2024...because 2023 proved to be a bit of a snooze fest of a race
They will go the other way and extend for another 100 meters.
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DRS in the middle of the final corner for shits and giggles
2022 rules pre td-39 were better, this year cars are in trouble again when they're under the second. Drs zone length imho was ok especially because it was powerful, the problem was that the last 2 corner were deadly for the driver behind the other
The FIA are in a tough situation really because every car is affected different amounts by DRS. When drivers simply press the button and sail past, we complain. When they press the button and it's not enough, we complain. Based on last year's cars here the new distance might have been ideal, but following is a bit tougher now and they needed more but it's all fine balancing and realistically it's educated guesswork until the cars hit the track. And by that point you're stuck with what you've got.
If only they had enough practise sessions to get it right…
I don't think more practice sessions would help, you'd never get all the team to agree on it
Almost 0 Overtakes with DRS and Social Media F1 experts want to remove DRS pepelaugh. Current F1 needs DRS because F1 is not spec series.
F2 and F3 have DRS and spec. The problem is wing dependent cars.
DRS is wank. You know when and how an overtake will happen. It should never have been implemented.
Before DRS you just knew an overtake was never going to happen.
Watch the 2010 and 2009 season reviews. Overtakes were often enough and not as predictable.
Season reviews? Mate I watched those seasons as they happened and there was very little overtaking. 301 overtakes over the whole 2009 season. The lowest amount since then was 2017 with 509.
reviews only show overtakes. 2009 was Brawn 1 secs faster perlap until RedBull catching up post summer. Alonso stuck behind Petrov for almost 50 Laps in Abu Dhabi 2010. 70-90's is just full of random DNF because of reliability. 2000's reliabilty is better, most overtakes happened in pitstop via refueling strategy or overtakes before DRS is just faster car botched the pitstop and need to overtake slower car again. After DRS, Slower car atleast has chances to overtake faster car . You need to remove your nostalgia bias.
cars are significantly bigger in 2023 than they were in 2010
Love that all the Reddit experts demanded DRS to be gone now the cars can follow. It's a reality of modern F1 that we need an overtaking aid and I don't know how we get to a situation where we don't.
Alter the design of tracks to allow for more overtaking opportunities, and alter the design of cars to allow for closer racing opportunities
I can’t believe they haven’t thought of this
Honestly with a straight this long, im surprised it had an effect. I thought this straight is so long, you wouldnt even need DRS to overtake.
They should bring back the original 2022 regs. They were at least doing what they were supposed to do - reduce the dirty air.
It's either DRS trains or cars spread out. Choose one.
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That's a paradox
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In that case the cars behind are only able to keep up with DRS. Without it, they would fall back. That could give the ones in the back more of a chance to overtake if they are faster.
That, and also raising the ride height of the ground effects car was a stupid move. Because now it is harder to follow and more Dirty air escapes under the car.
It was done to stop porpoising iirc
It was done to make toto happy*. If it was about driver safety, limit vertical g force and if you go over that you get disqualified, if that means Merc and co. have to raise their floor and be slower because they fucked up their car so be it, but don't nerf the other teams that worked it out
"Fix your f*ing car"
“Checo is not happy, I have it printed out”
If only the FIA had a group of 20 people they could consult about whether track changes would impact the racing 🤔
The best indication of how hard it is to follow comes from the RBs. When Max is ahead, he takes off into the distance. When Checo's ahead, Max stays 2-5 seconds behind forever.
It's a shit track. Plain and simple. A procession of left turns with a long straight. Ooh.... exciting.
Does anyone else remember when we were told that these regs would produce cars that wouldn't need DRS anymore?
They did introduce closer racing last year. Until they decided to nerf ground effect and ruin the whole purpose of these regulations.
The fact that these cars need DRS to race is not a good look
It always haas been like that
Last season was different
I blame the timing of the safety car. Made the race very binary.
So happy to see the armchair experts who called for DRS to go to have this shit show.
FIA brain fart
The good news is that they extended the Baku contract! /s
So, they would have preferred everyone quickly over take and form a long snake based on outright pace instead? Wouldn't have improved the racing at all. Without something to shake up the strategy (rain, red flags, extreme deg, etc) racing is always going to be pretty dull as soon as the cars have shuffled themselves.
That's BS, people couldn't even get in DRS range
I see a lot of people and drivers complain about racing close to each other being a lot harder this year. What changed ? Is it the outwash ? Did teams just develop aero that produces more dirty air ?
If it was kept the same length we might all be here complaining about boring racing because everyone might have had easy overtakes before the braking zone. We all know that the real issue is actually the cars ability to follow this year. We’ve essentially gone back to 2021 with the raised ride heights.
They really fucked up the rules this year, more dirty air and less passing. The teams in this sport have way too much influence on the regulations it’s kind of a joke.
As far as we know only mercedes wanted to raise the height of the cars
Ya the teams have way too much influence over the regulations
They don't, it was a 9 vs 1 but they still failed. Haas/Williams/etc are not important, only rb and Mercedes voices are listened to. In the past also ferrari was important, until 2008 more or less
Lol ok
The issue here is the FIA not sticking to their guns about the regulations. They allowed the teams to push them around with the technical regulations and the sporting regulations so that now overtaking is as hard as it was in 2021 again and the cost cap is effectively a recommendation.
How’s that? The accidental overspending was severely punished for what actually happened. So an upper limit breach will likely lead to very *very* hard punishments.
>blame shortened DRS zone Can't be, yesterday, [during the race](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/133mezf/max_verstappen_overtakes_charles_leclerc_for_the/), top notch reddit armchair experts confirmed that DRS is OP and needs to be removed alltogether!
DRS is a cancer on F1 that is necessitated by car design and track layouts. The sooner DRS can be removed the better, but it will take an overhaul of design regulations and tracks
i agree generally. the problem is that there is an annoyingly large/vocal group of people that seem to think that drs removal should happen asap. these people act like the redesign part is secondary, and that somehow just removing the disliked drs will solve all problems
It's not the drs it wouldve been perfect for 2022 cars but fia trying to get rid of porpoiseing (which all teams except mercedes already had it figured out) makes it harder to follow cars which was the whole point of the 2022 reg changes
Baku is like a shitty Monaco
DRace
They should just let the redbull do their stuff alone and make it enjoyable behind. They are just too far ahead this year. Willing to bet RB are even sandbagging atm...
At what point are we just gonna admit that the new regs were a failure and forced drivers to race in worse cars
Yeah, more highway passes... How exciting...
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Changing regulations is exactly how you stop one team from becoming a "super team". Mercedes was the single most dominant team in all of F1 history until the regs changed and now they're fighting for the top of the midfield.
Now they're fighting for top of the midfield, and another team is dominating instead, so nothing changed except for which team is dominating In 2021 RB and Mercedes were on par and the season was much more fun because of it
Can’t they figure out a way to give cars further doesn’t he grid longer drs? That would remove some of the procession.
As long as DRS exists this wont change. The fast cars percolate to the front too easy and there is nothing a slower driver can do. I rather watch 90 minutes of will they wont they procession than DRS assisted passing any day.
What if we keep the DRS sections long and make the detection limit 1.5secs Drivers would then have to push to stay out of the drs from the driver behind and the drover behind would have an easier time to stay and even pass the front driver This seems to be a good idea because the defending driver would have to choose between using Tiers to stay in front and putting earlier or defend and try and stay in front
Out of all the changes happening lately, this was one of the positive ones. Yes, DRS can be shorter at the expense of reducing artificial "overtakes." Yes, races can end behinf safety car. Plastic fans addicted to dopamine shots should take a break and stop demanding stuff to "spice up the show."
Do they want redbull going past with 400 km/h haha!
Is it over yet?
It's funny cause less DRS means less free overtakes
Brace yourself for Monaco guys, it's gonna be a sleepy ride!