06/12/2023
NEWS STORY
The FIA's director of single seaters admits that a loophole in the regulations which is being exploited by the teams is compromising the chances of drivers successfully overtaking rivals.
Despite the promise of improved racing and a more level playing field as a result of the 2022 rules overhaul, more often than not the changes have not had the desired effect. Indeed, despite the fact that it is still widely seen as a gimmick, DRS still accounts for the majority of successful passes.
While 2022's overhaul, which was intended to reduce the amount of dirty air and therefore allow cars to follow more closely, had an initial impact on the racing, as was anticipated the teams engineers soon began to exploit whatever loopholes they could find.
As recently as Abu Dhabi, Carlos Sainz claimed that drivers are using dirty air to impede rivals.
"As drivers, we know that if you do a corner two seconds in front of another car, one second or two seconds in front, you're going to make him lose a tenth or two in that corner," said the Spaniard.
"As the weekends have gone on, I see people relaxing a bit on that," he continued. "When it's tight in Q1 and Q2 I see people giving a bit of dirty air on purpose in some corners, to maybe make the others lose some time in corners.
"We don't consider it to be impeding because it's not like you need to lift," he admitted. "But you know you're giving him dirty air and you're giving him a bad run in that corner."
"Close following, let's say the wake, has definitely got a bit worse this year," says Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA's head of single-seaters. "We knew it would deteriorate a bit when people developed a bit more.
"There were a few particular areas of the car where some loopholes we didn't manage to close soon enough," he admits. "For example, the front wing end plate area was one of them, some of the wheel furniture area, brake ducts and stuff on the inside of the front wheel, these areas made the wake a bit worse.
"I think we've learned a bit how to do it next time around but overall, the wake did get a bit worse compared to 2022, still a reasonable amount better than 2021, but there has been a bit of a deterioration in terms of closeness."
Indeed, what were previously referred to a processional races are now somewhat euphemistically referred to as having suffered from DRS trains.
A side effect of the increase of dirty air has been tyre degradation, which has seen the like of Ferrari particularly badly affected.
This, according to Tombazis, is due to the lack of downforce that a car following another will suffer along with the obvious lack of cooling, all of which means less grip and therefore the tendency of overheating tyres.
Unfortunately, with the next rules overhaul not due until 2026, there is little that can be done.
"I don't think it's going to get much worse for next year because I don't think there's any other loopholes to scrape though, the front wing area, and so on," says Tombazis, his fingers tightly crossed no doubt.
"I expect it's going to stay very similar. I also don't think it's got worse during the year, I think it was just this year versus last year."