Has Formula 1 racing become better or worse – or more or less authentic – after swapping last year’s Drag Reduction System for its new regulations? Here’s part of N2000’s detailed assessment:

I kept watching out of a hope that F1 would get better over the years: hoping DRS was temporary, to 2022 fixing the issues of the previous era of regulations, to 2026 getting away from the failure of the ground effect era, but now I’m done.

[DRS] is the start of the current era F1 finds itself in. Ever since then, F1’s leadership has given up on organically improving the racing, choosing to spice up the racing with artificial elements like DRS, the early Pirelli tires, and now the 2026 batteries. After 2009’s aerodynamic regulations and 2010’s refuelling ban organically improving the racing, F1’s leadership decided to introduce DRS for the 2011. I was surprised to learn that this decision was made in June or July in 2010, because the common narrative around DRS’s introduction was that it was in response to Abu Dhabi 2010. By the way, not even DRS could improve racing at that awful track.

Back then, DRS was extremely powerful, and many fans criticised it for being overpowered, offering suggestions to reduce its effect like limiting its uses over the race. To give you an idea of what it was like in the post-2008 era, overtaking at Monaco was extremely difficult, but not near impossible like it is now. I can concede that DRS was actually good for Monaco, even if I am against its existence in principle.

As I mentioned above, I was one of those that naively believed that DRS was a temporary solution. But then we got 2017, undoing everything 2009 set out to accomplish, now using DRS as a crutch. I am sorry, but I am not going to cheer for “DRS wide open!” because I can tell something is wrong about pressing the button in the designated zone to pass. As an aside, I would not be surprised if F1’s leadership thought they could combat the increased dirty air from the 2017 aerodynamic regulations with DRS.

Not surprisingly, 2022 set out to fix 2017, but the ground effects brought their own issues.

This takes us to 2026, and we have more artificial racing thanks to the batteries and clipping. I thought we would replace DRS with using battery boost (like a significantly more powerful KERS), but it has led to yo-yo racing, and it is awfully predictable. And then there is a clipping, which makes the cars look pathetic. The 2014-2025 cars suffered from clipping, true, but always at the end of a straight when drag was at its highest, so it made sense to clip there. But now, cars are obviously clipping when they have not braked for too long. Fast corners, where drivers have had to demonstrate their commitment, are now cruised through because the car loses sufficient speed prior to the corner.

Somehow 2026 has managed to make DRS look good. At least with DRS we can tell who has the advantage. Battery charge is mostly kept hidden from us.

I write all of this because over the years – and recently thanks to Domenicali’s comments – F1 has made it clear that it cares more for the show than the integrity of the sport. The show is always a consideration for sports, but we can watch F1 in its current era and notice something is wrong, especially in 2026.
N2000