Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel believe Formula 1’s new 2022 cars haven’t done enough to fix key problems.
A major rules overhaul for this season saw the sport reintroduce ground effect designs for the first time in 40 years with significant restrictions in development to try and promote closer and more competitive races.
Generally, the changes have worked with cars able to follow much better than before, but Alonso feels the influence of car performance to decide positions is still too strong.
“The new regs were supposed to bring all the cars closer together, meaning multiple teams and drivers could win races,” he said via GPFans at Imola.
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“But the order in qualifying is still team by team not driver by driver, so in general the sport should keep looking into that and improve it.”
This year also saw Pirelli develop brand new 18-inch wheels for the first time in F1, with an emphasis on allowing the drivers to push harder for longer.
But again the two-time world champion feels the Italian supplier didn’t go far enough.
“It’s easy to follow cars, aerodynamically we don’t lose as much as we did before, but the tyres are still an issue,” Alonso said. “To follow cars we are still damaging the tyres a lot.
“This year’s cars, it’s not like the previous generation of cars that we knew very well and could arrive at the circuit and the car was working close to optimal. This year you need some time to fine-tune everything.”
As for Sebastian Vettel, he is concerned about the role DRS still has in races, which was something F1 had hoped could even be removed with the new cars.
“I think you can follow closer, there is less drag effect as well,” the Aston Martin said via MotorsportWeek, “but we do rely on the DRS probably more than in the past, to some extent.
“The interesting bit would be to take the DRS off and see how the racing really is, if you are able to overtake a lot better than in the past.
“I’m a bit cautious about the DRS because it was brought to help assist overtaking but now it feels a bit like it’s the only thing that allows you to overtake at times.
“So ideally, we need to have a set of regulations that allow us to follow and race without DRS. You know, DRS hasn’t been there for 70 years. It was brought in 10 years ago to help, as an experiment.”
Vettel also pointed to how sometimes overtakes have become a battle to be behind at the detection point rather than actual wheel-to-wheel racing.
“I think an overtake should always be an effort and not dictated by you being in the zone and you get the DRS,” he said.
“The race in Jeddah, where you had the leaders braking for the DRS line to try and be the second one to cross that line, that’s a different type of racing.
“I don’t think we should go that way so we will see, we’re still early in the project and definitely you can follow closer.
“Overtaking is still hard, but it should be an effort and it should be a reward when you manage to overtake.”
