Proposal for an intelligent DRS

[dave kumar]

I'm proposing a modification to DRS. Not that I'm in love with the current system or that I think the proposed change to DRS makes it any less artificial. It is just a little bit more intelligent, uses currently available technology and would be pretty simple and cheap to implement. And it will just have to do until somebody invents my volatile rubber compound.
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... f=1&t=5229

What I'm proposing is that DRS can be activated on any straight as long as you are within a certain distance behind another car. The cars could be equiped with the now, almost standard (if you own a fancy BMW or Mercedes) laser to measure the distance to the car in front as used by adaptive cruise control.

Under my proposal, the driver retains control of whether and when to deploy DRS, as long as they are in the designated DRS zones, which as I said before could be on every straight on a track.

What is the difference in this system to the current setup? Mainly that you must be directly behind a car to get the benefit of DRS. If you pull out to overtake, you will lose DRS. It is more akin to an exaggerated form of drafting. A car may gain enough momentum to pull along side but not have the 20kph advantage that DRS gives, for the remainder of the straight.

Pull out early on the straight and you lose DRS and it is a straight drag race to the corner so it may return us to the pre-DRS spectacle of cars staying in the slipstream until the last few metres before the corner, before diving out to attempt an overtake under braking.

[RZS10]

And then you get some marbles stuck on your camera lens ...

[dave kumar]

Technology is fallible. DRS is artificial and it will never be as desirable as good close racing that result from physical phenomena such as drafting. But pre-DRS we had years of soul-searching - is there enough overtaking in F1? How do we give cars more overtaking opportunities? DRS is a pretty blunt instrument for achieving these aims. I'm only suggesting a little sharpening.

And if rubber gets on your lens, does that mean you get DRS all the time or none of the time?

[heidenreich27]

Drs is great, ong without drs there would be 0 overtakes

[strad]

IF and I say if you want the darn DRS, they should be able to use it anytime, anywhere.
BTW..I downvoted that because we had plenty of passing for years without DRS.

[RZS10]

And if rubber gets on your lens, does that mean you get DRS all the time or none of the time?

Well that would depend on how the system is set up ... point is: a laser/camera based system would probably be too prone to failing or giving DRS when it should not or not giving it when it should ...

How would the system know if it is another car or just the track limits (be it barriers, tyre walls) ... it would basically give DRS in Monaco all the time

[SiLo]

Pretty sure there are very simple, non visual ways of calculating the distance between two moving objects. But I like the idea, I think it would be better.

[Just_a_fan]

Pull out early on the straight and you lose DRS and it is a straight drag race to the corner so it may return us to the pre-DRS spectacle of cars staying in the slipstream until the last few metres before the corner, before diving out to attempt an overtake under braking.

I can see certain drivers trying to stay behind the car in front until they are almost touching. Then having an almighty crash because they get the timing wrong. Or staying close behind and the lead car's energy recovery kicks in and slows the lead car resulting in a Webber-at-Valencia style crash. Thanks but no thanks.

http://youtu.be/eYE1UDbklis

[Shrieker]

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... =1&t=12964

While i see where the OP is coming from, i think a better idea would be to give the defending driver DRS when an attacking driver with open DRS gets alongside, as suggested in the thread above. And add another DRS zone to every track.

[mrluke]

How about if the camera looks for a heat source rather than a simple reflection. That should reduce the false positives.

However this system would not be able to work on a time gap, it would have to be distance. This would mean its more effective on slow sections of track than on faster ones. Im in two minds whether that would be a good thing or not.

[Pingguest]

Drs is great, ong without drs there would be 0 overtakes

The drag reduction system is awful, artificial and proves Formula One is actually incapable to really address the lack of close racing and overtaking.

[McMrocks]

Drs is great, ong without drs there would be 0 overtakes

IMO (and it is slightly off-topic, well not only slightly but since it was brought up...) the number of overtakes is negligible. I would rather have a race with 5 overtakes that are a result of a 10 lap long battle with the pursuer fighting really hard to overtake than a race with 100 overtakes which are just drive-bys.

Just my opinion. Too many battles are over after just one lap thanks to DRS. The battle between LH and FA last weekend was just brilliant and we saw a kind of heroic drive. And that without any overtake. On another track like Canada with a too long DRS zone we'd never seen such a battle. The battle had been over after 1 lap. There is almost no driver left who tries to defend his position as he knows it is hopeless.

Don't focus on the overtakes. Focus on the battle

[strad]

McMrocks;
Well said mate, well said. =D>

[dave kumar]

...However this system would not be able to work on a time gap, it would have to be distance. This would mean its more effective on slow sections of track than on faster ones. Im in two minds whether that would be a good thing or not.

It's a good point, it is distance rather than time based. At 300kph an object will cover 83m in 1 second, at 100kph it will cover 28m. So if you fixed the DRS range to be 80m you could get DRS if you were almost 3 seconds behind the car in front at 100kph. This sounded way out to me until I thought about it. When will an F1 car be travelling at a constant 100kph on a straight? Let's hope that isn't part of the new fuel regs.

Remember as well that, under my proposal, you need direct line of sight of the car in front to activate DRS, so on tight twisty sections of track where the cars are going slower, there is a smaller window in which they have this line of sight. And DRS is less effective at slower speeds.

It hadn't occurred to me but one nice feature of the line of sight part is that the further behind you are from the car in front, the less time you will have to use DRS as you get a shorter time during which you have direct line of sight. This gives it a graceful degradation, where it starts as a weak effect and gets stronger each lap as you get closer. Until you pull out to overtake when you lose DRS. As someone said earlier - it's all about the battle, not the overtaking. This should give drivers the chance to close up on the car in front, hustle them, try to overtake. But when they actually pull out they only have a momentum advantage, not a drag advantage. No more drive-bys.

[Just_a_fan]

Don't focus on the overtakes. Focus on the battle

The number of overtakes was the focus because fans were bored with seeing no on track action. That's not to say that there wasn't any action it was just that it was never shown on the TV. The issue is that the majority of fans only see the race on the TV. Historically the TV has shown one battle at a time and, in many cases, only showed the leader driving around. This was often boring. So the FIA et al tried to make it interesting by fiddling with the rules.

The answer is to take the broadcast rights away from Bernie / FOM and allow viewers to choose which battles they want to watch. That way they can watch the exciting battle for 14th or they can watch the less interesting stuff at the front as they wish. All of the rule changes brought in to increase overtaking and "the show" have failed to address the key issue - that viewers expect more than a single, sterile TV feed. Give the viewers the option to view what they want and people will be happy and will stay / return to the sport. This will never happen so long as FOM/Bernie/CVC are focussed on the 1990's TV model of delivery.