F1 News
Date: 25/November/2011
The impact of new overtaking gizmos in F1 has been overwhelmingly positive, despite some criticism that overtaking is now too easy.
That was the view of three experienced F1 drivers, speaking on the eve of the 2011 season finale in Brazil this weekend.
The introduction of DRS (Drag Reduction System), which alters the rear wing of a closely-following car to allow a top speed burst, plus the return of KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) have combined to deliver more overtaking in a single race than used to be seen in an entire season.
The ‘downside’ is that some feel the overtaking has become artificial, especially in situations where two DRS zones are in quick succession - resulting in a pass and then almost instant re-pass.
But such position changes, no matter how ’artificial’ in their creation, are seen as essential in keeping casual viewers from switching the TV channel. Seven time world champion Michael Schumacher certainly found little to criticise.
“To me, I think it is very obvious that we have improved big time,” said the Mercedes driver. “We have had incredible races this year. I take one particular example and I think it’s pretty fresh still, and that’s Korea. If you think about the fight that Mark Webber and Lewis had together over there; without DRS, it would have been nowhere close, we wouldn’t have seen anything. It would have just been a normal kind of old traditional race. It may not always work out perfectly, there’s a little room to improve the situation but in general it has contributed a lot to some great racing.”
Another world champion, Jenson Button, agreed: “Personally, I think it’s brought a lot to the racing. You obviously have races where you think it’s too easy to overtake, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives and I think we’ve had some great racing this season on circuits where we’ve never had overtaking before, especially with two competitive cars, you can have a bit more of a fight now.
“Even if it doesn’t make the pass for you, it can bring you a lot closer so that you can have a go elsewhere on the circuit. I think DRS on its own is good but personally I feel that having KERS has really helped us this year. I think we can really use it to our advantage, to overtake and obviously to try and block a position, so that, for me, has been as big as DRS.”
Home Brazilian star Rubens Barrichello is also a fan.
“I enjoy it very much,” said the veteran Williams driver. “I think it’s been an incredible year and the fact that in life, sometimes you can see people are never happy with that, because I heard for 20 years that there wasn’t enough overtaking in Formula One and all of a sudden I’m hearing people saying there’s too much!
“It’s just 18 races and they come up with numbers saying that there’s been a hundred overtaking manoeuvres so it looks a bit too easy, but I think it has been quite good. It’s still difficult to follow the car in front because the cars are going fast because of its aerodynamic balance, and whenever you have something that destroys that, you basically don’t follow the car, so the DRS has helped.
“It is true that sometimes it may make it too easy, sometimes it wasn’t enough, so I think the FIA had all the good numbers to make the show even better for next year.”
Another element in spicing up the 2011 track action has been an aggressive approach to tyre compounds from new exclusive supplier Pirelli. McLaren driver Button - one of the best at tyre conservation - preferred the dramatic wear-rates seen earlier in the year.
“I think that at the start of the season, especially, when we were trying to work out what the tyres were like and how many laps they would run and what the degradation was like, I think there was a lot of overtaking,” said the Englishman.
“It seems a little bit different now, the degradation of the tyre doesn’t seem to drop off a cliff like it did earlier this year. Maybe that’s just our car, I don’t know, but that’s the way it seems.”
Barrichello later quipped: “If you want to have the degradation I still have it! You can have [my car].”
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