Overtaking using DRS sometimes requires no skill I agree, but not always as there were some pretty tight manoeuvres made yesterday into the first corner. In recent years we saw much faster cars held up because of the dirty air problem, and you end up with a reversed "sitting duck" situation.

Given how much you admire Alonso (as do I), you'll no doubt recall he "lacked the skill" to pass Petrov in the final race of the 2010 season, despite being in a much faster car.

He had no chance to overtake, what DRS should do is at least give him a chance to do so. Unfortunately sometimes it's too easy, but that's a matter of the Race Director and his team getting the length of the DRS zone correct.

 

I recall that the Renault had quite a turn of speed on the straights.

I admire all of the drivers, even the also rans.Vettel and Alonso stand a head above the rest at the moment.I would like to have seen them in old skool F1 cars* that did not look like something out of Buck Rogers.Then we would see some good old slip streaming.

God I feel old!

*With appropriate safety additions.

 

I don't think DRS is making as much difference as people think. What looks like an easy DRS overtake is probably in equal parts down to better speed and traction off the corner (i.e. tyres and/or skill), strategic use of KERS, good old-fashioned slip streaming, and DRS. It's quite common to see lines of cars on the straight with everyone except the leader using DRS, and it apparently making no difference to any of them. If DRS is just "easy", how can that be? And why is it that having overtaken with DRS, the order doesn't just swap back the next lap?

Back in the day slipstreaming often looked too easy. It could also be said to be artificial, and giving an unfair advantage to the car behind.

 

So what?

The dirty air meant that Alonso was unable to follow closely enough around the corners to even attempt a pass (if he got close, his cornering speeds were too adversely affected). DRS evens things up. No skill required to drive fast in a straight line.

In the old days, cars relied a lot less on aero, so DRS was not something that was needed.

 

IMO DRS does not even things up, it shifts the advantage from the leading to the following car.
Maybe instead of fiddling at the edges tighter regulation of the aero side of things might be the way to go? A significant reduction in downforce would lead to slower cornering and more opportunity to race and overtake. Speed alone does not make for good racing.
Got a delivery of books to put away now.

 

IMO DRS does not even things up, it shifts the advantage from the leading to the following car.
Maybe instead of fiddling at the edges tighter regulation of the aero side of things might be the way to go? A significant reduction in downforce would lead to slower cornering and more opportunity to race and overtake. Speed alone does not make for good racing.
Got a delivery of books to put away now.
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They've already tried that route and it didn't work. The likes of Newey et al are much too clever. DRS is a relatively simple (unless you are Ferrari ) way to even things up.

It shifts the advantage to a faster car, that much is very clear. When the cars are evenly matched, you get to-ing and fro-ing, as we saw with Button/Perez and Webber/Hamilton yesterday.

 

More Sniff:

 

Lets be honest, they haven't really tried it seriously.

There a lots of ways to prevent the teams generating anything like as much down force and reducing the dirty air that the cars produce.

Unfortunately, there isn't the political will within the FIA to do it. F1 cars are supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport engineering. If you take away the down force, you take away some of that technical superiority over the other formula.

DRS is relieves the symptoms to some degree rather than curing them. The weird tires are the same.

 

As well as that, F1 has been all about aerodynamics for years now. The teams have invested 100's of millions in wind tunnels; they're not going to be happy about throwing away the advantage.

But I think the cars are running much closer than they were a few years ago. I'm not sure why it is; the regulations haven't changed all that much since 2009, but it does seem to be the case. Maybe it's just that the drivers have stopped making excuses and got on with it.

 

I suspect some of that is the designers are getting better at generating down force even in the dirty air. Exhaust blown diffusers being a prime example.