What is DRS and how does it work?

Formula One's DRS can still confuse new and returning fans trying to understand the countless terms involved in a highly technical sport.

Introduced for the 2011 season to increase the likelihood of on-track passing, the Drag Reduction System, usually initialised to DRS, is an overtaking aid that increases a car's speed.

Simply, it's a system that lets a car temporarily power around a circuit with reduced downforce to go faster.

As with many things in F1, there's a lot more nuance to fully understand the system, and our DRS guide will cover everything you need to know.

If you've seen any Williams Racing F1 car, you'll be familiar with the wings at the front and rear of all our vehicles.

These are designed to keep the car glued to the ground using an aerodynamic effect called downforce.

Those of you who have put your arm out of the window of a moving road car and felt the air pushing on your hand will have experienced a simple version of this — when your fingers point down, the air pushes your hand down.

Although downforce generation is vital for allowing an F1 car to corner at speed, it hinders the maximum speed possible when driving in a straight line thanks to the air pushing down on the wings.

DRS negates this effect by letting the driver move the rear wing to be flat and effectively stop generating downforce, the same as holding your hand straight when it's out the window of your own car.

Without the moving air pushing the wing down, less wind resistance is exerted on the car, allowing for faster speeds.

Each driver has a button on their steering wheel that opens or closes the DRS flap on their car's rear wing.

The DRS flap will also close whenever a driver pushes the brake pedal without any need for them to press anything on their steering wheel.

However, drivers can't use DRS anytime they might want to go faster and are limited to specific areas on each track designated as DRS Zones.

These zones feature on straight or predominantly straight sections of the circuit and are predetermined by the FIA before each Grand Prix weekend.

Monaco has just one DRS Zone, while Melbourne's Albert Park and Singapore's Marina Bay Circuit boast four.

Any F1 driver can open their rear wing in these DRS Zones during a dry Free Practice or Qualifying session to go faster on their lap.

During a dry Grand Prix or Sprint race, however, they must be within one second of the car in front of them when they pass by a DRS detection point in the metres preceding a DRS Zone.

Each driver will know they are eligible for DRS when they enter a DRS Zone by hearing a beep in their headset or by their steering wheel indicating DRS is available.

They must then manually activate DRS by pushing the relevant button on their wheel, the placement of which will differ between each team's steering wheel design.

DRS is only available when the track is dry. The race director disables its use whenever wet weather hits a circuit.

Drivers will use DRS to set faster laps than they could without the system during Free Practice and Qualifying, while it is used as an overtaking aid in race conditions.

DRS becomes available in a Grand Prix or Sprint when the gap to any car ahead drops to within one second.

This gap typically is to the driver who is one position in front on the track, but lapping cars also counts, letting race leaders utilise DRS even though they are leading all of their rivals.

Similarly, any driver eligible for DRS without enough speed to overtake can use the system to defend from a car behind that might otherwise be faster, as Alex Albon expertly demonstrated in the 2024 Azerbaijan GP.

Overtaking had become an ever-increasing challenge before F1 introduced DRS in 2011.

Passes were often kept to the pit lane thanks to strategy rather than wheel-to-wheel battling.

DRS changed that limitation to allow chasing cars to enjoy an overtaking aid, but only if they can close in on the driver in front without assistance.

For F1 cars that had become overly sensitive when following one another in corners, this opened far more opportunities for passing than before, thus creating more entertainment for viewers.

However, many purists believe that a driver at the level of Formula One should overtake their rivals through skill alone and not require any help to execute a pass.

Yet the aerodynamic complexity of modern cars rendered overtaking increasingly difficult, and DRS has undeniably increased the frequency of close battles.

Some circuits, like Barcelona and Australia, historically had relatively processional races, but now see far more action for fans thanks to DRS.

Furthermore, the FIA continually monitors whether DRS becomes too 'powerful' for overtaking and can change the position and length of each DRS Zone for subsequent F1 visits.