Ask Gary: Why do you hate McLaren?

Why do you hate McLaren so much?
Gordon Chree, via Twitter

Gordon, actually you have got it all wrong. I'm a great supporter of McLaren as a team.

I used to work for McLaren many years ago, and there are still some of the people there that I worked with from my days spannering in the late 1970s.

What I do hate is what McLaren has become. It has everything it needs to be poking it right up Red Bull or Mercedes or whoever is at the top, yet for many years it has squandered that.

Last year, McLaren had the Mercedes power unit that dominated the season in the back of the works Mercedes cars. As Williams showed, it could be used very effectively by a customer team - but to no avail for McLaren.

This year, McLaren changed to Honda. We all know that to get success out of this, it will be a long-term project. But I want to see some passion, a bit like Fernando Alonso on the radio at Suzuka.

It's not so many years since Ron Dennis made one of his famous statements after being congratulated for finishing runner-up: "second is the first of the losers".

He's not saying very much now.

I never thought I would be saying this, but personally - and I hopefully speak for many McLaren fans - I'd like to hear him talk about the pain of the situation he is going through.

How competitive do you think McLaren will be next season?
Tim Jellema, via Facebook

I was disappointed that Honda didn't bring more to the table for Suzuka. In all my time working with Honda, it always found something for its home race, so from my point of view it's still a question of finding the sweet development direction.

The power unit development rules are not being tightened up as originally planned for 2016 - and that should allow the scope of work I think Honda will need to (a) be able to understand what the cause of its deficit really is and (b) react to it.

Also, on McLaren as a team, it started this season with a power unit manufacturer that was in the first year of this type of engine. Yet McLaren built what it called a 'size zero' rear-end bodywork detail.

If you are in you first year of anything, you need to let your partners have the opportunity to exploit different things. You can't box them into a corner. Many times this year, Honda has had to compromise what little performance it has because of cooling restrictions.

Yes, every area of performance is important, but I think a better compromise could have been reached.

If you were working with Honda or Renault, would you be pushing for in-season development - knowing how much of an advantage Mercedes/Ferrari have at present, and the resources at their disposal? Surely Honda and Renault catching up depends on how much potential the others still have?
Scott Adam, via email

Scott, what I would like to see is whoever is doing the best job has the minimum room for development, and the others - and I don't care who it is - have the best opportunity to catch up.

We all want close racing and to keep manufacturers and entice others to come in, so there needs to be light at the end of the tunnel.

I would do that by allocating development tokens depending on a power unit's championship position. Below, I will give a few quick points-versus-tokens suggestions. They are not the correct numbers, but just an indication as to what I would be trying to set for a formula that allows manufacturers room for manoeuvre.

For this, it is the points per car that defines the token allocation. Doing it this way will also help convince manufacturers to supply new teams, as it would add to their car numbers but probably not to their points haul:

Highest-placed power unit manufacturer, say eight cars supplied in total.

Total points 800 divided by 8 = 100 points per car.

First-placed manufacturer gets 4 tokens for pre- or 2016 in-season development. It's the manufacturer's decision when to use them.

Second-placed power unit manufacturer, say six cars supplied in total.

Total points 480 divided by 6 = 80 points per car.

Second-placed manufacturer gets 20 tokens plus 4 = 24 tokens total again for pre-season or in-season 2016 development. It's the manufacturer's decision when to use them.

Third-placed power unit manufacturer, say four cars supplied in total.

Total points 240 divided by 4 = 60 points per car.

Third-placed power unit manufacturer gets 40 tokens plus 4 = 44 tokens total again for pre-season or in-season 2016 development. It's the manufacturer's decision when to use them.

Fourth-placed power unit manufacturer, say two cars supplied in total.

Total points 80 divided by 2 = 40 points per car.

Fourth-placed power unit manufacturer gets 60 tokens plus 4 = 64 tokens total again for pre-season or in-season 2016 development. It's the manufacturer's decision when to use them.

I would also add something to the regulations to say that any manufacturer must be in a position to supply engines as required depending on the number of teams entered. Hopefully, something like this would reduced the risk of this stupid - and I have to say self-inflicted - Red Bull situation.

So if you have one supplier, it must supply 100 per cent of the grid plus one more team, to allow for a new team entering.

If you have two, it's 50 per cent plus one team; for three manufacturers, one-third of the grid plus one team, etc.

If you look at pictures of Mansell in his Williams circa 1992, you see a white air-supply tube from the car into his helmet. Why is this no longer used? I ask as the crash involving Sainz last weekend again raised the idea that drivers can become trapped in fencing or barriers, and if a fire had broken out...
Phil Irwin, via email

This tube was connected to a small life-support bottle containing oxygen. Yes, it was there to help if a fire broke out, which in those days was much more common than it currently is.

Although the oxygen supply was a help for the driver, it wasn't really such a good idea as far as fire-prevention was concerned.

To answer your question, why has something not been created to replace it? It was never mandatory and teams just seemed to stop using it.

It was also around this time that a lot more effort was put into fuel-tank design and specification, and that vastly reduced the risk of fire breaking out in an accident.

Sochi was a rare track in that tyre wear was a bigger problem than degradation. What factors dictate this and how big a part does track surface/configuration play in this?
Alan Briggs, via email

Basically, there are two things that have to work together, and that is the track surface and the tyre. At Sochi, this balance was better than at most other tracks.

What Sochi did show was that a harder tyre was a better direction than tyres that suffer heat degradation after only a few laps, or even a few corners, of misuse.

We saw that it was fairly difficult to get a good laptime on the first lap of qualifying. And in the race, as Sergio Perez showed, doing a one-stop strategy with an earlyish pitstop was also difficult.

In the past, quite a few tyre companies used a sort of twin-compound tyre. The top 0.5mm would be a soft qualifying compound, and when that wore off after two or three laps the compound was harder so they became a better, more consistent race tyre.

This is a direction I would be pushing for. We, or at least I, want to see the drivers having to hang it all out in qualifying to get that ultimate laptime.

But I also want to see them have consistent tyres for the race to allow them to put in place the big plan of how they're going to manage it.

What are your thoughts about the possibility of allowing teams to get made-to-order tyres from Pirelli to live up the racing?
Ravi Putcha, via Twitter

I am totally against this. I was working in F1 with Jordan when Ferrari had made-to-order tyres from Bridgestone and we, the customer, had what Bridgestone could produce (cheaply).

In reality, it is soul-destroying because it's just another thing that you know you can't do anything about.

I don't really understand why anything like this would spice up racing. If you are a big and well-financed team, you will employ a group of experienced tyre engineers and through this you should then have the best tyre combination for each circuit.

If you are a small team with a limited budget then this will not be possible and the divide will only get bigger.

Also for the viewer/spectator, how does any commentator go about explaining it? The TV coverage currently struggles to keep on top of who is on what tyre, so add in another element and it will just confuse an already very messy situation.

I read that you worked with Team Ireland in A1GP for a time. What did you think of the World Cup of Motorsport concept and do you think it's a loss that it no longer exists?
Bob Rowland, via email

Bob, yes I was and it had the potential to be a really good formula. But unfortunately, as with many of these good ideas, the people at the top weren't racers, they were only in it for what they could take out of it - a bit like CVC and F1 currently.

They also underestimated how long it would take to shore the formula up before it gained its own momentum. Actually, Formula E is not far away from the same sort of business plan, so it will be interesting to see if it can survive the ups and downs that the first few years will throw at it.

It's a loss that we now don't have any form of a winter series. Perhaps F1 should do fewer races in its normal season, say 18, and then do a 10-race winter series with 'young' drivers and much-reduced teams in terms of personnel.

Now there's a good idea, and it gives all those F1 reserve drivers race-seat time. If done correctly, we could keep all the great tracks like Monza and still bring in all those new circuits out there where the sun shines while we're suffering the winter gloom in Europe.

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