Mercedes boss Toto Wolff doubts a shorter DRS zone caused the “boring” Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
With a revised Sprint format and a circuit known to create drama, mayhem was expected last weekend on the Baku City Circuit.
Instead, despite some early scuffles in both races, the action was largely muted as drivers struggled to get enough of a run to make a pass.
“There was no overtaking, even with a big pace difference,” Wolff said via Total Motorsport. “It made it not great entertainment.
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“We have to analyse the weekend with the sprint format, whether there are positives we can take out.”
The main reason many drivers pointed to was the FIA’s decision to reduce the DRS zone on the main straight by 100m compared to last year.
“I don’t know why they did that,” Lewis Hamilton was quoted by RacingNews365, “we have always had great racing the way the DRS was.
“By the time we turn DRS on, it was too late.”
In fact, the only team who really seemed to benefit from the DRS was Red Bull, with their mighty system powering both drivers past Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
But Wolff disagreed the shorter zone was the main reason.
“At the end, it all comes down to racing,” he said.
“It needs the tough battles and I think the highlight you could see yesterday [in the Sprint] was George [Russell] and Max [Verstappen] being able to battle it out and today there was none of that.
“Even if you were within 0.2 seconds it was very difficult to overtake, it was nearly impossible to overtake unless the other driver makes a mistake.
“We need to really look at how we can make it better, we need to look at how we can avoid just a boring race.
“I’m not sure that 100m more DRS would have made a difference.”
To back up Wolff’s point, Sunday’s race actually saw the same number of overtakes as in 2022 with 23.
