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Red Bull agree with DRS ditch plans

Published on 21 Feb 2017 16:28
6
By: Fergal Walsh

Red Bull is fully behind the motive to rid Formula 1 of DRS, with many labeling the system as 'artificial'.

The system was introduced in 2011 to aid overtaking opportunities, by lifting the rear wing flap to help a chasing driver pass a car ahead. With the aim of enhancing the show, it has received a negative response over the years.

Liberty Media took over the sport at the start of the year, with F1 veteran Ross Brawn handed the duties of sporting management. He has said that he plans to ditch DRS in the future: "Everyone knows it's artificial," he said. "We need to find purer solutions."

Now, Red Bull official Dr Helmut Marko backs Brawn in arguing that artificial overtaking has not proved to be the answer for the F1 'show'.

"With DRS, in a two-man fight, the front man is helpless," he told Auto Motor und Sport. "It's not real overtaking. Extreme braking is one of the most crucial abilities of the top drivers. When you look back in the history of formula one like Prost and Senna, it was often the race-defining moment," he concluded.

Fergal Walsh

F1 News

Replies (6)

talktohenry

Posts: 362
Totally disagree as we need more passing and slower cars need an opportunity to pass a higher powered car, which they normally won't have the power to pass in a straight fight.

F1 needs more passing, even if it's artificial. Even with this how many cars get to pass a Merc.
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- Feb 21 2017 - 17:12
- f1fan0101
  
  Posts: 1,804
  I agree.. I'd love to see a Formula where DRS isn't needed but for the next four years at least, it needs to stay
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  Feb 21 2017 - 17:28
mclarenfan1968

Posts: 1,027
I agree DRS is a load of BS, the car' wake needs to be reduced through reduced aero profiling towards the rear and increased ground effects that will go some ways to solve the problem of closely following a car in-front. The rest is down to the drivers.
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- Feb 21 2017 - 17:49
Patentprutser

Posts: 390
I fully agree, ditch it
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- Feb 21 2017 - 18:42
calle.itw

Posts: 8,527
I think I disagree: DRS is a nice feature in itself, just make sure that it isnt overpowered or vital in every overtake. It should be the little extra oompf that'll help you overtake an opponent. Getting rid of it is a step back in my opinion.
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- Feb 21 2017 - 20:21
Ramshoek2

Posts: 1,579
Although I don't like DRS - it is far to artificial - what we do not need is another knee jerk reaction.
The regs that start this year have been hastily initiated in 2014 when the slowest F1 cars were effectively out-qualified by the fastest GP2's. A 'problem' that had fixed itself within one season.
Now we have those new regs with big aero and big, stable tyres (while unstable tyres, with rapidly decreasing grip levels where the one thing that gave us some interesting racing).
Many fear that this years big aero cars will give us very little overtaking opportunities. Add to that the more stable tyres.
Only this week an engineer mentioned that increased air resistance might leed to equal or lower straight line speeds, giving overtaking opportunities. Whether this theorie is based on car aero alone or still relies on DRS, I don't know.
So lets wait and see how racing under these new regs develops before we ditch DRS or make any further knee jerk reactions.
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- Feb 22 2017 - 09:13