F1 | Liberty and FIA: hypothetical liberalization of the DRS to increase overtaking

After the poor show during the Australian Grand Prix, the FIA ​​and Liberty Media got to work and organized a meeting with the teams on Saturday to discuss what the moves to implement to increase the number of overtakings during races in the near future.

One of the proposals, as reported by Auto Motor und Sport, would concern the possibility of operate the DRS freely along the entire route and not just in pre-established areas as currently happens. It would also be hypothesized to increase the effectiveness of the DRS itself: at the moment this system, when activated, allows an average gain of around 20km/h, while Liberty Media's objective would be to reach at least 25km/h. To achieve this objective, the idea of ​​adopting larger rear wing flaps would have been taken into consideration, so as to increase the effectiveness of DRS than when it is not active. To increase the number of overtakings, the FIA ​​would have proposed to also intervene on the front wing, with the aim of making them easier and reducing the turbulence that is generated in dirty air. For this reason we are considering theelimination of cascade profiles on the front wings.

Given the short time available, the FIA ​​and Liberty Media would also have asked for help from the teams' engineers to find valid proposals to resolve the problem: to be able to adopt the new regulations as early as 2019, a majority vote will be needed within the 30 April, while beyond that date unanimity from all teams will be required, which is significantly more complicated to obtain.