OV9

What say ye?

Edit: the best overtakes at the Silverstone GP yesterday were - imho - the ones done whilst DRS was disabled for “safety”. Admittedly the conditions were treacherous and inconsistent, so it wasn’t a “normal racing” situation, but anyway….

I think it has to be done as part of a bigger change. It was brought in (IIRC) because they couldn't get close enough due to the aero.

Ignore

I was quite impressed how close cars could follow through maggots and beckets, but don’t think the tow would be strong enough to pass by the end of the following straight without some dive bombing.

Obviously it was possible in the slippery conditions where they were able to play with lines a bit more.

Then again, if they didn’t have it would we get more variation in setup, would you get teams taking a gamble and accepting they would be vulnerable in the corners to have a rocket ship on the straights to get track position?

You'd have cars set up purely for qualifying, then the old era of cars taking 20 laps to overtake each other. Perhaps even worse as there's no refuelling or engine modes to play with anymore, so it would mainly become a undercut/overcut race. So with the current cars I'm in favour of DRS.

They need to keep working on the aero regs to keep making it easier to follow closely. Until they really nail that, we probably need it.

duncs500 wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2024 10:44 am They need to keep working on the aero regs to keep making it easier to follow closely. Until they really nail that, we probably need it.

But the aerodynamic effect that allows cars to slipstream on the straights makes it difficult for cars to follow closely through corners. Unless they favour far more ground effect, it's a natural phenomena. Providing what is effectively a "push to pass" option doesn't feel natural to me.

New 2026 regs are actually push to pass with no DRS!

mik wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:20 pm

duncs500 wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2024 10:44 am They need to keep working on the aero regs to keep making it easier to follow closely. Until they really nail that, we probably need it.

But the aerodynamic effect that allows cars to slipstream on the straights makes it difficult for cars to follow closely through corners. Unless they favour far more ground effect, it's a natural phenomena. Providing what is effectively a "push to pass" option doesn't feel natural to me.

I favour more ground effect.