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Monday, March 28, 2011

Straight to the DRS

Having watched the race, like everyone else, I'm not massively impressed with the DRS system.  It worries me that all the guys were desperately trying to get within the 1 second window so they could deploy the system down the start finish straight.

What's this going to do for the sport?  Not only was there no evidence that it was useful as a passing aide - but it seems to me that it might become the focus for attempting to overtake, leading to an increasingly sterile race apart from the DRS zones.

The majority of overtaking action in Melbourne took place without employing the system - most memorably Vettel on Button into turn 4 - and what we saw of the DRS related to shots of the cars coming out of the last corner, the rear wing opening up, and then a long race down the straight attempting to catch up to the car in front.  Memorably we watched Button in the early laps deploying the system to try to overtake Massa; without success.

Result of first race DRS "null points".

I would hate to think that when it becomes useful, on the longer straights in the calendar, drivers would become dependant on its deployment in order to take a place.  I'd prefer to see the rules in respect of the aerodynamics of the car altered to provide an increased slipstream effect for the cars behind rather than focus overtaking on an artificial aide such as is the case here.

I'd like to reserve judgement on it but after Melbourne I just don't see a role for it - unless it makes drivers complacent throughout the rest of the lap which then allows those behind to take advantage.  Maybe that's what happened to Button yesterday?