Jon Noble: The red herring reality of McLaren ‘mini-DRS’ saga

The focus around McLaren’s ‘mini-DRS’ grabbed the headlines throughout the Singapore Grand Prix – despite it never being a factor at that event due to track characteristics. With the team agreeing to make revisions for the next time it will use that specification of rear wing, it concludes a chapter of Formula 1 technical intrigue and distraction

McLaren’s ‘mini-DRS’ has been a big talking point in Formula 1, but it’s not the big reason the team is winning.

The philosophical idea of reductionism, which is something that happens in F1 a lot, is to try to produce simple explanations for very complicated ideas. The outcomes of wars, the causes of disasters, and the reasons why grand prix cars win races are all too often assigned to a lone decision or a single aspect – rather than being the culmination of thousands of factors coming together to deliver the final outcome.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.