DRS is pretty much useless at Monza... here's why

Why does DRS never really work at Monza? It's Italian Grand Prix week, which means Ferrari home race week, which means I need to probably prepare myself for emotional distress. But that's not why we're here for this video. Instead, we're going to talk about why the drag reduction system doesn't really work at Monza and why the temple of speed is notoriously bad for creating DRS trains. Let's dive into it. So this particular problem at Monza helped a certain someone by the name of Daniel Ricciardo take victory last year ahead of his teammate Lando Norris. Definitely the last happy memory if you're a fan of the honey badger. On the face of it, you'd think that overtaking at this track would be pretty easy. Really long straights, plenty of opportunity to slipstream the car ahead, couple of uses of DRS. But no, it's not as simple as that. The DRS isn't particularly useful around here because of how little downforce the F1 cars run around a high speed power track such as Monza. With the massively skinny wings plonked onto their cars, it means that the drag reduction system doesn't reduce as much drag, which in turn means that the speed difference between a defending and attacking driver isn't anywhere near as much as other circuits. Comparing it to the likes of Spa, where unless you're Alex Albon with a rocket ship of a Williams, teams tend to run a balance somewhere in the middle so that they're not a snail on the straight but also have enough downforce to cope with the second sector. This allows for a more powerful slipstream and DRS effect because they're carrying more drag, slowing the leading car down, allowing for overtakes to happen. There's also another big factor too that massively affects the amount of overtakes we might see. This particular one is in fact invisible. I know, you may have thought I was going to talk about rain or a safety car perhaps, but no, it's the wind. Something which I feel isn't really spoken about enough when it comes to the broadcast and a lot of people can be left scratching their heads as to why there were very few overtakes in a race. Unless it's Monaco, we all know the reasons why that's a ball fest. If there are strong headwinds in DRS areas especially, it can change the complexion of any race. It's exactly the same as running more downforce on the cars. Driving into a strong wind will create more drag and therefore when the DRS is activated, the attacking driver will see more of a benefit. I remember Baku in 2018 when there were gusts of up to 60 kilometers an hour causing all kinds of havoc. You do consistently get quite strong winds there anyway due to the tunneling effect and I can remember countless times where drivers go three, four, five wide there. So yeah, wind is a pretty important factor. Other things to take into account are how draggy the concepts of each car are as a basic design. Mercedes for example have been one of the slowest in a straight line and what happened at Zandvoort last time out shows that. There you have it, a video to maybe explain why we don't see many overtakes this weekend. But then again, if we all pray for a massive headwind then it could provide us a very spicy race. Who do you think will win the Italian Grand Prix? Is it anyone but Max? Let us know in the comment section below.