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A comment on Formula 1: Building the world’s fastest cars. Parent comment

Re:Formula 1: Building the world’s fastest cars by eterm on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @03:11PM (#14036160)
But there was far less overtaking pre-DRS than there is now according to this site [1] which tracks such things. These stats don't include:

The overtaking figures for each race (across all data sets) do not include:

* Position changes on the first lap of the race

* Position changes due to drivers lapping backmarkers

* Positions gained in the pits

* Positions gained due to drivers yielding

* Positions gained when a car has a serious technical

problem; e.g. puncture, accident damage, etc.

[1] http://cliptheapex.com/overtaking/

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Re:Formula 1: Building the world’s fastest cars by randomf1fan on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @04:55PM (#14037115)
There are more overtakes, but not _better_ overtakes. The vast majority are boring passes on the straights, with absolutely zero excitement.

Switch on DRS, breeze past the guy on the straight.

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Re:Formula 1: Building the world’s fastest cars by rajathagasthya on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @05:55PM (#14037598)
Yes, there were less overtaking. But whenever it happened, a large part of it was due to the driver's skills rather than sheer superiority of the car. The DRS rule says a driver can activate it only if he is within 1 second of the car in front. So when he does activate it, it's just like a free overtake and the car in front can't do anything to avoid because IIRC he can't activate DRS. This just doesn't make sense to me and takes the fun out of overtaking.
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Re:Formula 1: Building the world’s fastest cars by k-mcgrady on Wednesday April 05, 2017 @07:23AM (#14041245)
I don't think DRS was necessary in the old formula but with the new aerodynamic formula I think it is and will get much better. It's extremely hard to get within one second now so if you can do it you're much faster and only being held up due to the dirty air. Look at AUSGP, not much overtaking and I think it has two DRS zones.
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