everything about the DRS in f1
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F1 cars want to go fast, but not just in straight lines. So they add inverted wings to the car to push it down to the ground so they can turn faster, because they don’t slide as much. But the wings also act a bit like parachutes in that they slow the car down, that’s not good on long straights when the downforce is not needed. So to make it easier to overtake you can open a part of the rear wing. You lose some downforce that you’re not using on the straight anyway, but the parachute effect is reduced which means you can go a bit faster than the car in front.
Each track has a DRS zones (numbers differ by track and are on straight bits) where this can be done, but only if you’re following a car less than 1 second behind when you hit a special detection point. You activate it by pushing a button on the steering wheel.
Also the DRS will also be activated when you’re following a car that’s been lapped.
Overtaking was difficult in F1. There is a huge reliance on aerodynamic downforce in F1.
Due to the aerodynamics of the cars there is a huge amount of turbulent air behind them. This is called dirty air. All this dirty air reduces the effectiveness of the aerodynamics of a car following another. The closer a car got to the one in front the harder it was to keep close as the grip was reduced by the dirty air mucking up the aerodynamics. This prevented cars getting close enough to overtake.
To make races more exciting there needed to be more overtaking.
It was decided the way to increase overtaking was to allow cars following another to reduce the amount of drag from their wings by opening them up on straight sections where downforce isn’t required so much. This would let them go faster.
There are several DRS detection and activation zones on each track. The exact amount varies between tracks. If a car is less then a second behind at a detection zone at the next activation zone they can open the rear wing to go faster and potentially overtake more easily.
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