I am ideologically ambivalent towards DRS. You can argue that it makes the racing artificial; but equally you can argue that ‘artificial’ makes no sense in this context, since all rules are necessarily artificial. The solution: ambivalence.

But regardless, its introduction to Formula 1 this season was – with the benefit of glorious hindsight – a mistake.

Why DRS is illogical

You have to control your variables. Any scientist, programmer, statistician – anyone with a bit of common sense – will tell you that. Throw too much change into any system and it makes the job of assessing the effects of the individual changes much harder. So you only do it if you need to.

There were – at least – three pretty big changes to Formula 1 at the start of the season: tyres from Pirelli, the reintroduction of KERS, and the DRS moveable rear wing.

With Pirelli coming in as tyre supplier, it was a logical decision to experiment with the characteristics. Since the characteristics can evolve throughout the season, it’s relatively low risk.

It was also logical to reintroduce KERS. Whether Formula 1 will contribute to the development of the technology or not, I do think it’s vital for the sport to at least make the right environmental noises.

What was the logic behind DRS? If no other significant changes were being introduced to improve ‘the show’, then there might have been an argument to give it a try.

Why we’ve got DRS

So why have we got DRS? Because back in June 2010, when pretty much everything was decided, we didn’t know that the tyres would help improve overtaking.

It was a busy month: the teams agreed to reintroduce KERS; the FIA World Motor Sport Council rubber-stamped FOTA’s proposal for adjustable bodywork, which has become DRS; Pirelli was confirmed as tyre supplier from 2011; and there was the Canadian Grand Prix, which made everyone realise that marginal tyres equal exciting racing.

It wasn’t long before there were calls for Pirelli to develop more marginal tyres than Bridgestone, but initially Pirelli was cool on that idea. It wasn’t until later in the year that it became clear that – at the request of the teams – Pirelli would go down that route.

At which point, in an ideal world, DRS would have been jettisoned; KERS and more marginal tyres would be more than enough technical tinkering to increase overtaking opportunities.

But by late 2010 the cars for 2011 were well down the development line, and it would have been unfair to remove DRS from the regulations – particularly for any team which had sacrificed one aspect of their design to optimise the adjustable rear wing. Plus the true characteristics of the tyres remained far from clear, irrespective of the positive noises Pirelli were making.

2012

So it’s only with the information now at our disposal that we can conclude that introducing DRS for 2011 was illogical. Which begs the question: would it be logical to dump it for 2012? Yes: DRS is unnecessary.

Unless of course there’s information not yet at our disposal which shows that it’s not unnecessary, in which case I’ll later decide in hindsight that it would be logical to keep it for 2012. I can get away with that, right?