Loading Experience...
Preparing your Formula Dream journey
Losing DRS was supposed to kill overtaking. Across nine dry circuits raced in both seasons, on-track position changes fell by 3.9%. That is all.
Formula 1 got rid of DRS for 2026. The widespread prediction was that overtaking would collapse. We counted the position changes at every race this season and compared them with the same circuits last year. Overtaking fell by 3.9%.
Not a collapse. Barely a change at all.
This needs stating plainly before the results, because "overtakes" is a slippery statistic that different sources count differently.
For every pair of consecutive race laps we counted how many drivers improved position. We excluded any driver who entered or left the pit lane on either lap, so pit cycles do not register as passes. We excluded the opening lap, because the start is not overtaking.
What that measures is on-track position changes. It includes a car recovering after an incident and a car passing a rival who is on a different strategy or nursing a problem. It is not a hand-verified count of wheel-to-wheel passes, and it will read slightly higher than one.
What matters is that the identical method is applied to every race in both seasons, so the comparison between them is sound even though the absolute number is a proxy. Where we could not compare fairly, we say so and drop the race.
| Circuit | Position changes per lap | Total | Race laps | Safety cars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | 2.77 | 183 | 66 | 0 |
| Zandvoort | 2.44 | 176 | 72 | 0 |
| Budapest | 2.39 | 167 | 70 | 0 |
| Spa | 2.39 | 105 | 44 | 1 |
| Shanghai | 2.34 | 131 | 56 | 1 |
| Miami | 2.16 | 123 | 57 | 1 |
| Silverstone | 2.10 | 109 | 52 | 2 |
| Spielberg | 2.04 | 145 | 71 | 0 |
| Suzuka | 1.91 | 101 | 53 | 1 |
| Montreal | 1.75 | 119 | 68 | 0 |
| Melbourne | 1.53 | 89 | 58 | 0 |
| Monaco | 0.88 | 69 | 78 | 2 |
The season mean is 2.06 position changes per racing lap.
Barcelona tops the list, which is not where most people would put it. The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya has spent two decades as the standard example of a track where nobody can follow anybody, largely because it was the venue for winter testing and everyone had seen enough of it. This season it produced more position changes per lap than any other circuit.
Monaco is last at 0.88, less than a third of Barcelona, on the longest race of the year by lap count. That is the expected result and it is the only one on the list that matches its reputation exactly.
Nine of these circuits were also raced in 2025, in dry conditions in both years. Three had to be dropped: Silverstone, Melbourne and Spa all had a wet race in 2025, and rain changes overtaking far more than any regulation does.
| Circuit | 2026, no DRS | 2025, with DRS | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | 2.77 | 2.89 | -0.12 |
| Zandvoort | 2.44 | 1.96 | +0.48 |
| Budapest | 2.39 | 2.41 | -0.02 |
| Shanghai | 2.34 | 2.73 | -0.39 |
| Miami | 2.16 | 1.30 | +0.86 |
| Spielberg | 2.04 | 2.20 | -0.16 |
| Suzuka | 1.91 | 2.17 | -0.26 |
| Montreal | 1.75 | 2.63 | -0.88 |
| Monaco | 0.88 | 1.15 | -0.27 |
2026 average: 2.08 per lap. 2025 average: 2.16 per lap. A fall of 3.9%.
Four circuits went up and five went down. There is no consistent direction, which is itself the finding: whatever replaced DRS is doing roughly the same job, and the circuit matters far more than the regulation.
DRS was not removed and replaced with nothing.
The 2026 cars run active aerodynamics, with front and rear wings that move between a high-downforce mode for corners and a low-drag mode for straights, plus a driver-deployed burst of electrical energy the FIA calls Overtake. We confirmed both from the car data, where the old DRS channel now reads zero all race.
The functional difference is subtler than "DRS is gone" suggests, and it cuts the other way from what you might expect.
The one second trigger survived. Overtake is still gated by the same condition at the same kind of detection point, so the rule about who qualifies for help did not change. What changed is the drag reduction. Under DRS, opening the rear wing was the chasing car's exclusive advantage. Under active aerodynamics, every car switches between a low-drag straight-line mode and a high-downforce cornering mode, everywhere, all the time.
So the chasing car lost the one thing it used to have that the car ahead did not. On its own that should have made passing harder, not easier. The full breakdown is in what is DRS in F1, which is now a history of the system rather than a description of a current one.
That it cost only 3.9% is the interesting part. Something offset it, and the most likely candidate is the second change below.
The circuit-level pattern supports that reading. Montreal, which had two of the most productive DRS zones on the calendar and therefore the most to lose, fell the furthest at -0.88 per lap. Zandvoort and Miami, where DRS was never decisive, both went up.
There is a second thing going on this season, and it is worth naming because it complicates the reading.
The 2026 cars carry roughly 30% less downforce than the 2025 generation, which we measured in are F1 cars getting faster. Less downforce means less wake, which should make following easier, and it also means less grip, which makes cars harder to place precisely.
So the 3.9% figure is not a clean measurement of DRS alone. It is the net effect of losing DRS, gaining active aero and Overtake, and losing a third of the downforce, all at once. Nobody can separate those with public data, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
What can be said is the thing people actually wanted to know: the racing did not get worse in any way this measurement can detect.
Strip the regulation question out and the table above is still useful, because it settles some arguments.
The three best circuits of 2026 for position changes are Barcelona, Zandvoort and Budapest. Zandvoort and Budapest both have reputations as processional, narrow tracks where the race is decided in qualifying. On this measure they are near the top.
Meanwhile Melbourne at 1.53 and Montreal at 1.75 sit low, and both are circuits usually described as good for racing.
The pattern that does hold is the extreme: Monaco really is different, and no amount of regulation change has moved it. At 0.88 per lap it produced 69 position changes across 78 laps, against Barcelona's 183 across 66. We measured why in the fastest street circuit in F1: Monaco's fastest lap is at full throttle for just 37% of its duration, against 68% at Spa, and a lap with no straights has nowhere to complete a pass.
Three honest limits.
One season is not a trend. Twelve races with a brand new set of regulations, at circuits where teams are still learning the cars. Ask again at the end of the year.
Safety cars distort individual races. A safety car bunches the field and then freezes it, and both effects land in this measure. Silverstone had two, Monaco had two.
Position changes are not quality. This measurement cannot tell you whether a pass was a fair fight into a braking zone or a car cruising past a rival with a puncture. It counts events, not entertainment.
The interesting part of a race is the two seconds before a pass, not the replay afterwards.
The Formula Dream app runs a live Dashboard through every session: every car on the circuit map, and a timing tower with lap times, gaps and intervals, tyre compound and age, plus flag and safety car alerts as race control calls them. The column that predicts an overtake is the interval, because you can watch a gap close over three laps before anything happens on the broadcast. You also get live driver radio as it is broadcast, which is where a driver tells the pit wall they are ready to go, and every FIA document of the weekend as it is published.
Free, no subscription, no ads, independent. Not affiliated with Formula 1.
No. DRS was removed for the 2026 regulations and replaced by active aerodynamics, where the bodywork switches between low-drag and high-downforce configurations, plus a driver-triggered deployment the FIA calls Overtake.
Barely. Across nine circuits raced dry in both 2025 and 2026, on-track position changes fell from 2.16 per lap to 2.08, a drop of 3.9%. Four of the nine circuits produced more overtaking in 2026 than in 2025.
Of the 2026 races measured, Barcelona, at 2.77 on-track position changes per racing lap. Zandvoort and Budapest follow at 2.44 and 2.39.
Monaco, at 0.88 position changes per lap, less than a third of Barcelona's rate and the lowest of any race we measured in either season.
From Formula 1's own timing data. For each pair of consecutive laps we counted drivers who improved position, excluding anyone who entered or left the pits on either lap, and excluding the opening lap. It is a proxy for overtaking rather than a hand-verified pass count, applied identically to every race so the seasons can be compared.
Because they were wet in one of the two years. Silverstone, Melbourne and Spa all had significant wet running in 2025, and rain affects overtaking far more than any rule change, so comparing a wet race with a dry one would have produced a meaningless number.
Abu Dhabi cut 21 corners to 16 to stop processional finales. We measured on-track position changes since, and Yas Marina now beats Monza.
