You wouldn’t think that multi-million dollar cars going at 320 km/h would be boring, but you’d be wrong.
For years Formula One (F1) was one of the dullest things you could watch, with each race being a procession: The guy who started in pole position (more often than not, Michael Schumacher) would win the race.
There were many factors contributing to this, but arguably the most important of them all was the car.
Over the years, F1 cars morphed from simple cigar-shaped instruments to wind tunnel honed machines, extracting every gram of down-force from the air moving over their bodies. While this made the cars insanely fast, it also meant that beside and behind each car was a pocket of turbulent air. When an overtaking car entered this pocket, it lost aerodynamic grip, and therefore was all but unable to pass; hence the racing was boring.
In late 2000’s the FIA (the organization which governs F1) decided to do something about the lack of passing, and redeveloped the formula to favour mechanical grip (from the suspension and tires).
Gone were the gigantic wings and winglets — replaced by relatively modest front and rear wings and super grippy slick tires. But it didn’t work. Passing was still a rare sight.
Lucky for those of us watching in 2011 the FIA finally seems to have gotten it right, with their new, three-pronged approach.
1) DRS
The DRS, or “Drag Reduction System,” is a flap in the rear wing that a pursuing driver can open on the straight, provided they are less than one second behind the car in front.
By opening a flap in the rear wing the car produces less drag, and the car is able to accelerate faster and reach a higher top speed than a car without its DRS deployed. This allows for more opportunities for a pursuing car to get beside and even pass the car ahead.
While the FIA is still working out the kinks (DRS can only be deployed on some sections of the track, and choosing this section is proving to be a bit hit or miss) its effect has been nothing short of dramatic.
2) Tires
This season F1 moved from Bridgestone to Pirelli as the series tire supplier, and with the move came a request from the FIA: make the tires wear out faster and more dramatically.
What this meant was that a driver now has, at most, 10-15 good laps on a set of tires before they hit what BBC announcer, Martin Brundle, has called “the cliff,” rapidly losing grip.
This change has made pit stops much more important, and has created a situation where the team with the best tire strategy — not necessarily the fastest car — has a significant advantage over their rivals . . . a situation McLaren driver Jenson Button has taken advantage of twice this season.
3) KERS
The kenetic energy recovery system (KERS) was first used on cars in 2009, and is, in essence, a hybrid system on steroids.
The system uses a car’s forward momentum to charge either a capacitor or a flywheel while braking. This energy is then used to drive an electric motor, giving the driver an extra 80 horsepower for about 6.5 seconds each lap.
Drivers can choose to use this extra power to go faster on a straight, or save it for a passing opportunity, effectively giving them a “push to pass” system.
On their own these new systems might not have amounted to much, but together they have combined, not unlike Voltron, to give F1 fans one of the most interesting seasons in years.
