Mercedes DAS In 2020: How It Worked?

In the past, we have shared a lot of stories about banned F1 tech. Even before Mercedes DAS, Formula 1 was full of bold innovations that didn’t last long.

Mercedes dominated Formula 1 from 2014, when the turbo-hybrid era began, through to the end of 2020,until Max Verstappen took the title from Lewis Hamilton in the final race of the 2021 season in Abu Dhabi.

MERCEDES DAS –

Dual-Axis Steering, better known as DAS; arrived without warning in 2020, turned heads instantly, and by the time rivals fully understood it, the FIA had already decided its fate… one season, that was all it got!

Mercedes DAS: A Loophole Turned Into an Advantage

When DAS first appeared during 2020 pre-season testing; it looked strange…

Drivers were not just turning the steering wheel; they were pulling it toward themselves and pushing it away mid-lap.

At first glance; it almost looked like something was broken! It wasn’t… Mercedes had found a grey area in the regulations.

The rules allowed adjustments to the steered wheels through the steering system, but they didn’t clearly define how that steering input had to behave.

There was no explicit restriction limiting movement to a single axis, so Mercedes asked a simple question… WHAT IF STEERING DID NOT ONLY ROTATE?

The result was DAS!

By adding a second axis of movement; the team gave drivers the ability to adjust the toe angle of the front wheels while driving.

It was subtle, almost invisible in termps of lap time gains on paper, but in reality, it unlocked something far more valuable… control!

How DAS Actually Worked on Track

For example; on the straight, the drivers would pull the steering wheel toward them, so this action aligned the front wheels into a near-neutral toe position.

The effect was immediate; less tire scrub, reduced drag, and slightly higher top speed; and just as important, it prevented the front tires from overheating.

On corners; as the driver approached a turn, the wheel would be pushed back into its standard position… this restored a toe-out setup, which is ideal for corner entry.

Car was sharper; more responsive, more predictable on corners.

It sounds simple when described like that, but in practice it was a constant balancing act, managed at high speed, lap after lap.

Toe-out is when the front of the tires point slightly away from each other, forming a “V” shape, and it is commonly used on F1 front wheels because it improves turn-in and makes the car more responsive in corners, though it increases tire scrub and drag on straights. Toe-in, on the other hand, is when the fronts point toward each other, forming an “A” shape, and while it can improve straight-line stability.

Tire Management: The Real Weapon

DAS was never about outright pace alone, but it was about managing the most sensitive part of a F1 car, the tires!

In modern F1, we know tire performance is everything, overheat them, and you lose grip, cool them too much, and you lose grip again… all you need is to keep them in a perfect window is what separates a good lap from a great one.

This gave Mercedes a way to actively control that window and during out-laps, especially in qualifying, drivers could deliberately generate heat by adjusting the wheel.

Even under the safety car, they could keep temperatures alive without pushing hard, and on long straights, DAS allowed them to cool things down just enough to extend tire-life…DAS adjusted the front wheel toe by roughly 1-2 degrees. helping reduce tire temperatures by around 5–10°C on straights.

Explanation: to put it simply, DAS gave Mercedes roughly a 0.1-second edge over its rivals in certain situations. In race conditions, the outright pace gain was not always obvious, but where it really mattered was tire management. That is where DAS made a difference, and over a race distance, it became a significant advantage for the German team that year. DAS added around 2–5 kg to the car, which normally would slow it down slightly. But Mercedes accepted that trade-off because the gains in tire management and consistency over a stint were greater than the small performance loss from the extra weight.

Why the FIA Stepped In

It didn’t took long, yes in 2020 DAS was legal, reviewed it, understood it, and allowed it.

Mercedes team had played within the rules; even if they had stretched their interpretation to the absolute limit.

But the governing body saw what could happen next.

If this remained legal; every team on the grid would have been forced to develop its own version.

That meant millions in research, new steering systems, redesigns of front suspension geometry, and endless testing.

And this happened when F1 was trying to control costs; especially with the introduction of the budget cap.

So they made a decision, they didn’t ban DAS retroactively; instead, they rewrote the rules.

According to reports, Red Bull Racing was the only team to formally protest during the 2020 Austrian GP weekend, arguing that it was illegal and even a moveable aero device.

Another interesting story from the past is the active suspension system used by the Williams F1 team… and there are plenty more stories like this on our website, which you can find in the F1 Tech category.

The Rule That Ended DAS

For 2021; the regulations were tightened with a very specific clarification.

Any change to the angle of the steered wheels had to come from a rotational movement of the steering wheel; and only around a single axis.

That one sentence… changed everything.

DAS relied on a push-pull motion, a second axis.

Remove that, and the system simply couldn’t exist anymore; what had once been a clever interpretation instantly became illegal.

It wasn’t framed as punishment; the FIA described it as ‘tidying up’ the regulations; closing a loophole before it could spiral into an expensive development race… still, the effect was absolute; DAS was gone.

A Short Life, A Lasting Impact

When the 2021 season began; Mercedes had to return to a more traditional setup!

No adjustable toe on the fly; no extra layer of tire control… and yet, the legacy of DAS remained.

Looking at the 2020 season stats, Mercedes took 15 pole positions from 17 races and won 13 of them, an incredibly dominant run for the German team. Lewis Hamilton secured the title by 125 points over his teammate Valtteri Bottas, and 134 ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. The results speak for themselves. Even without DAS, Mercedes looked untouchable that year, but still… who knows what extra edge it really gave them.

So the question is: what if the DAS rule had not been changed? Would Red Bull have been able to compete with Mercedes in 2021, the year Verstappen won the title?

That is the million-dollar question. Red Bull was already very close, but who knows… with that extra edge from DAS, Mercedes might have gone on to dominate the season all over again.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Mercedes DAS test, F1 2020 pre-season — Photo by Alberto-g-rovi (CC BY 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons