2011 rules get drivers’ vote

After a year in which KERS, DRS and the new Pirelli tyres have made F1 a different proposition, the drivers have expressed the belief that the Championship is better for it.

Michael Schumacher, speaking in the official FIA drivers’ press conference was unequivocal: “to me, I think it is very obvious that we have improved big time. We have had incredible races this year. I take one particular example and I think it’s pretty fresh still, and that’s Korea. If you think about the fight that Mark Webber and Lewis [Hamilton] had together over there; without DRS, it would have been nowhere close, we wouldn’t have seen anything. It would have just been a normal kind of old traditional kind of race. It may not always work out perfectly – there’s a little room to improve the situation – but in general it has contributed a lot to some great racing.”

Jenson Button agreed, and additionally cited KERS as a game-changer. “I think DRS on its own is good but personally I feel that having KERS has really helped us this year. I think we can really use it to our advantage, to overtake and obviously to try and block a position, so that, for me, has been as big as DRS.”

Button also mentioned the role played by the new tyres. “There’s been a lot of great overtaking and some of it does come down to tyres. So yeah, I think KERS, DRS and the Pirelli tyres have all worked very well together. We’ve just got to hope that it doesn’t change too much next year.”

“I’ve enjoyed it very much,” added Rubens Barrichello. “I think it’s been an incredible year and the fact that in life, sometimes you can see people are never happy, because I heard for 20 years that there wasn’t enough overtaking in Formula One and all of a sudden I’m hearing people saying there’s too much! I think the FIA has all the good numbers to make the show even better for next year, and I’ve very much in favour of that. I think Pirelli had done a really good job [also] so together with the DRS and the KERS, I think the show has improved and let’s hope that’s the way Formula One’s going to be for the long term.”