Trouble ahead for Red Bull as F1 could reportedly change more than a decade-old qualifying rule

It is being reported that F1 will make changes to a long-standing qualifying rule in its efforts to hamper Red Bull's advantage this season.

According to AMUS, F1 plans to restrict the usage of DRS in the qualifying sessions. The teams will now be allowed to use the feature only in the races to make overtakes.

Although this rule will affect every single team on the grid, it will particularly hamper the progress of Red Bull as it has the most efficient DRS on the grid this season.

There is a huge deficit between Red Bull and other teams in this aspect, which was clearly visible at the recently concluded Belgian Grand Prix where their drivers were consistently clocking 340 kph while other teams like Mercedes could only get up to 333 kph with DRS open.

According to Autosport, Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough had previously stated that closing the DRS gap to Red Bull was one of their priorities in the 2023 season.

"That has been an area of focus for us, so we're sort of working at that every upgrade we bring to the car. It's all tied to helping the efficiency under the DRS switch so we're making further steps on that all the time and this is a little step on that. Any update on the car is just focused on having more efficient downforce, especially in the areas where maybe we weren't quite as strong as we were before," he said.

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Former F1 driver praises Red Bull for their DRS efficiency

Former F1 driver and Sky F1 pundit Karun Chandhok labeled Red Bull's efficiency in DRS 'genius' and was left dumbfounded by the Austrian team's advantage in straights in Baku.

Chandhok said on the Sky F1 podcast:

"It's genius, isn't it? We've had DRS now for 12 seasons and they've just gone there and thought, 'right, we need to find something that gives us this incredible advantage so even if we don't qualify the front row it doesn't matter' - as proved this weekend. Somebody was showing me some drag numbers and when they hit the magic button, the Red Bull loses about 24-25 percent of its drag - this was the case in Baku - whereas most others are sort of 14-15 percent."

"So they've just given the drivers free performance. So more often than not they're going to qualify the front row but even if they don't, they're still going come through the pack," he added.

It will be interesting to see if F1 really implements this rule in the upcoming races after the mid-season break.