F1 News
Herbert has no issues with 'Mini DRS' rule change: 'Typical situation'
A couple of days ago, it was announced that tighter tests will be carried out on the rear wings of the Formula 1 cars already at the Chinese Grand Prix. Former F1 driver and former steward Johnny Herbert has no issues with such a change, he explained to a betting site.
Flexible wings, both front and rear, having been a talking point throughout the 2024 season, and it remained the same heading in to the current one. Ahead of the season-opening round in Melbourne, stricter regulations came into effect in terms of the front wings, while changes to the front wing will happen entering the Spanish Grand Prix.
Recently however, it was announced that even stricter measures will be taken by the FIA. From this weekend onwards, the 'slot gap' must vary by more than 0.5 millimetres (with a 0.25 tolerance gap because of short notice), while that was previously 2 millimetres.
"It's a very thin edge at the back of the back of the wing, which is called the trailing edge and it's that that is obviously flexing around. What that does is the DRS flap goes from three millimeters and then it opens up to about 50 millimeters or whatever. There's a big gain. So it will go faster in a straight line than someone else would be able to potentially achieve, better than others, but there’s always going to be a team that all the other teams are going to be looking at, they’re always looking at each other and saying, well, they've got an advantage," Herbert said about the so-called 'mini DRS'.
"If you reduce it to zero then the lack of gain means it’s not worth doing it. They might gain half a millimeter or a millimeter but that doesn’t do anything. They're just controlling it so much more. Whenever you read the rules there's never supposed to be any flexibility but you can't make anything completely and utterly rigid. It's impossible to do that. But what they can do is try and tighten up those little performance gains that are there," he continued.
Herbert has no issues with such change
The Briton believes that having such advantage over competitors can make a change. "Potentially it can because one team may be able to benefit more than another so the other teams will also try and close that loophole to stop that team from gaining an advantage with the car that is the one that is everyone is racing against and this time around it’s the McLaren."
Still, he sees no issues with now completely closing this loophole, and believes this is just regular Formula 1. "It’s a typical situation. Other teams are trying to stop someone having an advantage over them, full stop. Is it the right thing? I don't have a problem with it being tightened up. Are McLaren doing things that the other teams haven't done at the moment or are they pushing the limits? No, this is just part of what Formula 1 is always about and they've done the better job," he concluded.
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