Ross Brawn is, by all accounts, a very clever man. Over the years, teams that he was involved with have won eight drivers’ titles, as well as eight constructer’s titles. He has been a technical director, team principal and a team owner; and he is credited as the mastermind behind Michael Schumacher’s seven world championship titles. Now he is the Managing Director of Formula One, and clearly one of the sport’s kingpins.
Given his technical background, it comes as no surprise that Brawn’s reign as Managing Director of the sport would see significant technical changes. As he put it: “We need to improve the raceability of the cars,” referring to the drivers’ ability to closely follow the car ahead, rather than fighting through the dirty air that is thrown up by the various aerodynamic aids that have been employed in the previous generation of F1 cars.
As a result, the technical regulations for 2022 has brought a raft of changes aimed at giving the drivers a fighting chance for an overtake, or at least to stay close to the car in front, in order to capitalise on the various Drag Reduction System (DRS) zones that are in place around the circuit.
By now, the DRS has become a deeply ingrained part of the sport, but in summary: DRS is an innovative system that allows the driver to adjust the rear wing of the car in order to reduce the amount of drag (and therefore also the amount of downforce) at certain points around the circuit. There are numerous rules that govern the use of DRS, such as a minimum number of race laps that need to be completed before the system becomes active, and crucially also that the car behind needs to be within one second of the car in front.
Clearly the goal here is to promote passing in the sport, and while the system has been in use since 2011, the latest regulations have made it a lot more interesting, as we saw at the Saudi Arabian GP this weekend.
In the past, DRS often allowed a chasing car to get within sniffing distance of the car ahead; sometimes even resulting in passes that stick. With DRS zones reserved for the high-speed sections of race circuits, where they have a major impact, getting to within one second behind the car in front often proved more challenging than the pass itself, given the state of turbulent air thrown up by the car in front.
But now, thanks to Brawn’s new regulations, the cars have been able to follow each other around much more closely, as we saw with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen chasing down Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in Jeddah this weekend. The closing laps of the race saw the Red Bull driver repeatedly close on Leclerc, despite the high-speed nature of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
And then there was DRS. This weekend’s GP featured three DRS detection zones, with Verstappen making use of the advantage offered by the reduced drag on multiple occasions – but his adversary proved a cunning opponent, using the system as a defensive mechanism, rather than the offensive force it was meant to be.
The Monegasque seemed happy to give up his lead to Verstappen just before the DRS zone, but then capitalised on the reduced drag – remember, he was now the car behind, right on the Red Bull’s rear wing – to re-take the lead. This he did not once, but twice. On the second occasion, Verstappen had wisened up to the tactic, clamping on the brakes just before the DRS detection zone.
AGAINST THE SPIRIT OF RACING?
This resulted in a farcical moment where the two drivers leading the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix attempted to out-brake each other: Not at the end of a high-speed section, but at the start. Could this be ‘raceability’ taken too far? Suddenly, we’re watching on-track tactics that we’ve never seen before, and while undeniably entertaining, one has to wonder if this is heading in the wrong direction – the world’s fastest cars and most advanced race cars, playing tactical games like this could have the opposite to the desired effect, introducing a tactical aspect that goes against the spirit of racing.
Years ago, when DRS was first introduced, Sebastian Vettel likened it to the throwing of bananas in the Mario Kart computer game, while Juan Pablo Montoya offered a more stylish analogy: DRS is like giving Photoshop to Picasso. I wonder what their opinion is after the 2022 Saudi GP…
In the end, Verstappen cottoned on to the required tactic, and he held back a touch before the DRS zone. The increased raceability of the new design then allowed him to stay in touch with Leclerc’s Ferrari, enabling DRS down the main straight and giving the Dutchman a clean pass into Turn 1. In a way this tactic offered some redemption to the situation, but the fact remains: Getting the racing formula exactly right is always going to be a challenge, even with someone as big-brained as Brawn in charge.
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Waldo van der Waal is a motoring journalist with nearly three decades of experience. He has worked as an F1 correspondent for various publications over the years, including WIEL and DRIVE magazines, in the late nineties. Since then, he has travelled the globe to follow some of the greatest motorsport events on the planet, including many F1 races and Le Mans. He has been closely associated with the Dakar Rally for the last ten years, worked with Fernando Alonso during his attempt at the race, and remains in touch with the wonderful world of Formula 1.