Control of drag farce on a circular cylinder using a detached splitter plate is numerically studied for laminar flow. A splitter plate with the same length as the cylinder diameter(d) is placed horizontally in the wake region. Its position is described by the gap ratio(G/d), where G represents the gap between the cylinder base point and the leading edge of the plate. The drag varies with the gap ratio; it has the minimum value at a certain gap ratio for each Reynolds number. The drag sharply increases past the optimum gap ratio; this seems to be related to the sudden change in bubble size in the wake region. This trend is consistent with the experimental observation currently available in case of turbulent flow. It is also found that the net drag coefficient significantly depends on the variation of base suction coefficient.