DRS zone shortened at Hungaroring

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

One of the Hungaroring’s two DRS zones has been shortened ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The activation point for the DRS zone on the start/finish straight has been moved 60 metres away from the preceding corner, reducing the length of the zone.

As was the case last year a single detection point will be used on the approach to turn 14. Any driver within one second of a leading car at that point will be able to use DRS on the start/finish straight and from the exit of turn one.

The FIA has also confirmed speed bumps have been added to the run-off at the turn six and seven chicane.

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Browse all 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix articles

Image © Pirelli/LAT

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

15 comments on “DRS zone shortened at Hungaroring”

  1. Hmm… Did we have DRS overkill last year? I can’t really remember (it was that dramatic a Grand Prix!) but DRS hasn’t been as bad this year as it has been in previous years I feel.

    1. @craig-o I think they’re beginning to find its sweet spot on a lot of tracks. It was always going to take a while to bed-in and is still a shoddy fix to the true problem – aero regs and dirty air.. But so far this year it’s the most balanced it’s been in a while – allowing the following driver to close-up to the lead driver, but actually have to put in a bit of blood and sweat to make a pass stick. I like.

    2. @craig-o The DRS pretty much didn’t work here in the previous years into T1, the only “DRS-y” pass I can remember from last year was Hamilton on Button, the year before when I was at the GP there was none into T1 (only Schumacher overtaking the Marussias and HRTs), but the second zone was good in my opinion, it allowed the driver behind to get close but then he had to work his way around the other driver.

  2. drs has been a failure so should just be banned so we can get back to real, hard fought & competitive overtaking.

    i say its been a failure because its not doing what it was meant to, which was to act as an assist.
    all its done much of the time is generate a series of soul-less, unexciting highway passing which have taken away from & not added to the excitement of races.

    every time i see a drs highway pass i just want to turn off, there boring to watch, it devalues overtaking & doesn’t allow real racers the opportunity to stand out.

    the amount of races i have switched off thanks to drs continues to grow & give it a few more years & i won’t bother tuning in at all.

    1. Totally agree. It has come to the point where the drivers are fighting to get into the DRS zone, because they know, most of the times, that if they reach it, they can overtake.

      Granted that’s not the case for cars that have similar pace, but it takes away the excitement for everywhere else.

      If you want more overtaking, make the cars even harder to drive on the limit.

      1. If you want more overtaking, make the cars even harder to drive on the limit.

        Yeah, no. I dont a bunch of overtakes happening because drivers cant keep it on track, I want hard fought battles like Alonso vs Vettel/Ricciardo in the last two races, Hamilton vs Rosberg in Bahrain;

        Besides, the fact is those were only possible because of DRS, the effect of dirty air affect even the cars with highest downforce (Red Bull) and engine discrepancy makes it even harder to overtake.

        Ideally, I’d like FIA to nail DRS zones, like there in Hungary, Monaco (like DRS would make a difference).

        1. It’s funny how you mention the Bahrain Grand Prix. If you look at the lap times, you will see the folly of DRS:

          Lap 47 – Hamilton sets fastest lap of the race up to that point
          Lap 48 – Hamilton sets fastest lap of the race up to that point
          Lap 49 – Rosberg gets DRS for “being the faster driver”. Essentially, because Lewis only built a gap of 0.98s, Rosberg was faster according to DRS.

          Also, DRS only gives advantage to the second driver. If there are three or four cars in a bunch, only the second driver will have a DRS advantage over the first; for all other cars, their DRSes cancel each other out.

    2. I think it should be used to allow drivers to get closer, not so overpowered that a car can straight up pass because of DRS as that’s boring. However, a trade off with the highway passes is that you can get multiple cars side by side trying to brake as late as possible. This happened at Hockenheim twice, and in my opinion redeemed the more boring overtakes. However, I’m not sure whether the multiple car overtakes were a factor of the set up of the DRS zone or just coincidence, if the former then the FIA need to change the other tracks to recreate this (if that’s what they are doing here then great).

    3. @williamstuart @kodongo @austus

      yes… at the time that overtaking was difficult we were complaining…
      Now that we have plenty of overtakes we complain again…
      im sure that if Fia bans DRS we will be complaining again…

  3. hungary is the only track where the FIA needed to leave the DRS zone alone. typically they’ve only gone and shortened it!

    1. Haha yeah, Vettel won’t be happy, being stuck behind Button last year cost him his shot at victory…

  4. Has a DRS zone been shortened before or is this the first?

    1. yes. i believe china and spain were shortened after 2011. i think…

  5. I’m very split about the whole DRS situation, yes it has added more overtaking but sometimes the overtaking is just too easy and boring.
    This may be a very daft idea, but what if DRS was always active but when you get within 1 second of the car in front it is deactivated? It would give chasing cars the chance to close the gap to a leader but mean that they have to make the pass themselves.
    Just an idea that I haven’t overly thought through so comments welcome.

    1. It’s clear you didn’t think that one through. Passing would be impossible because the lead car would still have DRS and the chasing car needs to pass without?

Comments are closed.