Enlarge / This is the rear of the Red Bull RB19. I can't find a good photo of it with the DRS flap open, but the bit that says Oracle drops down flat, reducing the amount of drag the wing causes and increasing the car's top speed. (credit: Bryn Lennon - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Formula 1 held its annual street race in Azerbaijan this past weekend. With its very high-speed track, the city of Baku has seen some rather exciting racing. But that was not the case this year, which proved more soporific than Ambien. But at least one other race was truly entertaining this weekend, as the World Endurance Championship visited Belgium. Watching the two makes me think it's time for F1 to drop a couple of the driver assists.

Part 1: The case for banning DRS

F1's problem this year is one it often suffers from. One team has designed a better car than anyone else, and assuming that team—Red Bull Racing—stays reliable, it's almost certain to win both the drivers' and constructors' championships. It's not Red Bull's fault it did a much better job than anyone else this year, but its advantage is magnified by a techno-crutch that was added to the sport some years ago to try to increase overtaking.

It's called DRS (drag reduction system), and it was introduced in 2011 to address the problem of one F1 car not being able to follow another closely enough through a corner that it could then build up the necessary speed to overtake.

Enlarge / Ferrari has ditched the V8 for its latest mid-engined supercar, the 296 GTS. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

IMOLA, ITALY—Time is running out for the internal combustion engine. Looming bans on new vehicles powered by internal combustion engines are set to go into effect in the mid-2030s around the world, from California to China, but even now, there are dozens of European cities that have implemented low-emissions zones that restrict passenger cars to hybrids and EVs. And unlike the average CO ₂ regulations that govern carmakers, there are no exemptions for building in low volumes.

That means if you build supercars—like, say, Ferrari—and you want to sell your supercars to people who live in the center of cities (which supercar owners often do), it's time to get electrified. That's something Ferrari has been working on for some time, first in Formula 1 and then in its ultra-expensive, ultra-low-volume models like the LaFerrari and SF90. But now, that tech has trickled down to the manufacturer's bread-and-butter model, a mid-engined machine called the 296. During the spring, Ferrari debuted the hardtop 296 GTB. More recently, it took the wraps off the folding-top 296 GTS, tested here.

Visually, it's easy to place this as a mid-engined Ferrari, and were you to line up a 296 alongside an F8, 488 , and 458, the evolution of the shape would be obvious. Then again, there are only so many places you can put a mid-engined car's engine and radiators, and where those go dictates where you need ducts, vents, and so on. However, break out a tape measure and you'll discover the wheelbase has shrunk by a couple of inches (50 mm).

Enlarge / After 50 years away, Ferrari is building a works endurance prototype again. (credit: Ferrari)

IMOLA, ITALY—After a break of 50 years, Ferrari is returning to top-level endurance racing with a new hybrid prototype race car. It's called the 499P, and in 2023 Ferrari will campaign a pair of cars in the World Endurance Championship, a series with the 24 Hours of Le Mans as its crown jewel.

As I've written before , 2023 is going to be an exciting time for fans of prototype racing. After the cubic megabucks-era of LMP1h collapsed under the weight of unsustainable budgets , the top class of the World Endurance Championship has spent a few years in the doldrums as Toyota faced minimal opposition from much smaller teams. But the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (which runs the Le Mans race) has a new ruleset now, called LMH (Le Mans Hypercar), designed to attract the interest of automakers by keeping costs sane—€30 million versus the €80-200 million that LMP1h cost—and, with less reliance on aerodynamic downforce , allowing for a closer visual link to their road-going products.

The 499P might be the prettiest LMH car to date. You'll detect styling cues from cars like the new 296 GTB at the nose.

And so far, it's working. Toyota was first to LMH with its GR010 , followed by boutique manufacturer Glickenhaus, then this year saw Peugeot ease its way back into to endurance racing with its new 9X8 —still not sporting a rear wing—ahead of a full campaign in 2023. But none of those brands have quite the same magic as Ferrari. Even though it last won Le Mans outright in 1965, it still has more of those overall wins (nine) than Toyota (five) and Peugeot (three) combined, trailing just Audi (13) and Porsche (19).

Enlarge / All these Ferraris have to be recalled because of a faulty brake fluid reservoir cap. (credit: Ferrari)

Spare a thought for Ferrari. Not its F1 team, repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as rival Red Bull romps away with the championships, but the road car division, which is in the process of recalling nearly every car it has sold since 2005.

The problem is the cap of the brake fluid reservoir. It's designed to vent pressure if necessary, but evidently that design isn't so hot. Venting can fail to happen, causing a vacuum to build up, resulting in a possible leak of brake fluid. And if you don't have any brake fluid in your brake lines, you aren't going to be able to slow down or stop (without hitting something large and solid).

The fix is therefore pretty simple—a new brake fluid reservoir cap, and a software patch that lets a driver know if their brake fluid reservoir is running low. (Should this occur, Ferrari says pull over immediately and get the car towed.)