Perez and Sainz confirm: 'That makes following more difficult from now on'
F1 News
Sergio Perez had warned about it before the Bahrain Grand Prix: in 2024, it has become more difficult for F1 cars to follow another car. Engineers are getting smarter as the regulations remain the same for quite some time, creating better solutions for channelling air past the car AND for the pursuer to suffer. Added to this is the fact that DRS will be activated after the first lap from this season.
After the Grand Prix, Perez said his suspicions confirmed: "I think it definitely changes the way you race especially with the cars around you," the Mexican said. "When you are in a fight, straight away you get DRS. Like I saw Carlos, he lost DRS early on, and he was just out of contention for a while. The car ahead, going straight into the clean air, it's basically going on his own."
"He [Sainz] has to use more of his tyres. So it's a bit of a disadvantage if you are fighting in places like Baku or even Jeddah. I think the racing is going to be different. It does create a difference to the car ahead. The first few laps so it's going to be interesting. I think the whole first stint between Mercedes, Ferrari and myself was very racy throughout. So I think that change in DRS is making a difference," the Red Bull Racing driver concluded.
Sainz found a way to pass Leclerc
Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) commented that with current tyres and the new DRS rules, strategy becomes even more important: "On one side you want to push to get out of DRS or to get into DRS, and then on the other hand, you want to save tyres because we all know how sensitive the tyres are in the first few laps to pushing. So it's a very fine line. As soon as I saw I didn't have pressure from behind, I decided to manage my tyres and it paid off instead of getting into the DRS battle. And then I could overtake them, no problem."