Should F1 drivers race for every team?

To ensure F1 creates real spectator interest, regardless of whether they are fascinated by the technology, should we have a 24-race series with 12 teams and 24 drivers, with each driver racing for each team twice each season and races allocated by lottery? The drivers would be under contract to F1 and would race largely for prize money. Drivers would progress to F1 through a recognised development stairway.
Timothy Lyons, via email

It's certainly an interesting proposal and worthy of discussion. I'm afraid, like most other ideas, it would be seen to destroy the DNA of F1 as we know it.

It would be good to see how Lewis Hamilton would handle a weekend with Sauber, or Marcus Ericsson a weekend at Ferrari. It would mean that the 'drivers' championship' would be won by the best overall driver who could cope with ups and downs and not just the one in the best car, while the 'constructors' championship' should still be won by the best car.

And remember, the idea was seriously suggested a couple of times by Max Mosley when he was FIA president.

There would be lots of things that would need to be done to allow this to happen. For example, the driver's working environment would need to be very well defined. This would allow them to take the seat from one chassis to another. Also, it would be best if the steering wheel and pedals were the same from car to car.

But these are just small things that could help ensure the driver feels at home from race to race and is able to focus on getting the best out of the car.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. In reality, it could happen if Liberty took out its chequebook and made an offer to the drivers that they couldn't refuse!

If that were to happen then the teams would have to go with it. After all, for them the constructors' championship is where they really earn their money.

It sounds like an extreme idea, but given all anyone wants to see is how drivers fare in different scenarios throughout the field and that they are truly tested, it's worth thinking about.

With much more 'flat-out' time this year, will we see teams not being able to push in order to save fuel?
Klaus Brandt Froslev, via Twitter

If you consider that the average circuit lap time is around 100 seconds and the objective is to be around five seconds faster, that's a 5% improvement in lap time. This comes from increased cornering speeds and decreased braking distances, so drivers are using more fuel by being on the throttle longer.

With the cars being wider and producing more downforce, the drag will have increased. But this, as always, will be a question of the compromise the teams make with their cars.

In the past, Red Bull has always been a team that runs its cars as high on downforce as possible, whereas Williams always trims back the downforce, and therefore the drag.

The maximum fuel that can be used in the race has been increased from 100 to 105kg, again a 5% increase. So I think everyone is hoping the end result is very similar to what we saw in 2016.

However, I think it will be a small percentage worse, albeit not enough to make it any more detrimental to the 'spectacle'.

The reason I used the word spectacle is that everyone is now talking about F1 needing to be just that. Well, this maximum fuel capacity rule is in itself detrimental to any such spectacle. It's simply an engineering challenge that is invisible to spectators and viewers.

With testing round the corner, what clues should we look out for to give us an idea on the pecking order heading to Australia?
@motorace_addict, via Twitter

Lap times and the amount of laps run at the end of each day, combined with guidance from the Autsoport staff, who will be bringing you the daily stories from the paddock, pitlane and track, will tell all.

When a car is good, it's very difficult not to do competitive lap times in it. If you run with high fuel loads to camouflage the performance, you can normally see that out on the track. The car looks heavy and just doesn't accelerate off the corner in the way a lighter car does.

It's just the opposite when a car is not well balanced or just doesn't have the overall grip level. Not many drivers can lever a lap time out of a car like that, and on the circuit it shows with locking brakes and inconsistent corner entry lines as the driver basically starts to overdrive the car.

I'll be there every day of the first test, sniffing around to bring you all the stories.

Looking back, was there any single reason for Ferrari's dominance in the early 2000s or was it just marginally better all round?
Hywel Lewis, via Twitter

It's never any one thing. Ferrari had a very good design team and an exceptional driver in Michael Schumacher.

But the most important part of the jigsaw was the relationship it had with Bridgestone, which basically developed tyres solely for Ferrari. The other teams using Bridgestones, including the ones we had to use at Jordan, just had to make do with what we got.

Bridgestone was using materials in its tyres for Ferrari that were just too expensive to use in the 'production' versions for other teams. I don't blame Bridgestone and Ferrari for that because this was during a tyre war and there was real competition with Michelin.

Ferrari was going to be the team that made the best use of the Bridgestones; the tyre maker had its own facility, as well as the test track at Fiorano, so between the two they had everything required just to put in the miles. That's what tyre testing is all about.

At Jordan, we had the luxury to test with a set of Ferrari's tyres once because it wasn't able to run. I can assure you, the difference was amazing. Frustrating, but amazing.

Do you think teams buying shares in F1 would lead to unfair rules and regulations in the future, where those with more shares push for agendas that benefit them more? Wouldn't that corrupt the sport to favour certain teams?
Neil Baird, via Facebook

You are completely right in what you say. Unfortunately, it's already happening.

The fact that Ferrari gets paid more than others just shows that the people who control, or have controlled, F1 have always paid more for the big names than the 'nobodies'.

I suppose that is what marketing is all about. If you can make sure the big names are a major part of the circus, then the other acts will come along to make up the numbers.

Having the teams buying shares in F1 will be a disaster. Firstly, as we have seen over the years, the 'works' teams come and go. Just look at the last couple of decades, with Renault, Honda, Toyota, Ford, Jaguar, BMW, etc all coming and going in various forms.

It would be worrying were any of these to become part of the ownership of F1 because the big decision of 'should I stay or should I go?' is made well above the heads of the people actually involved in F1.

It's the big boss, or at least the board, that makes these decisions. If, for some reason that might very well be unrelated to F1, a car company is in trouble (just look at the fallout from the VW emissions scandal), they will have no option but to pull the plug.

The regulations need stability and direction. They need an independent body to ensure this happens. The FIA isn't the right body, but hopefully Ross Brawn and Liberty Media will recognise this and succeed in putting together an independent group with the best interests of F1 at heart.

As for the independent teams, other than Red Bull every one of them is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Owning any meaningful part of F1 is out of their reach.

With the increase in torque and concern about lack of revs, is it not now time to reintroduce a 'robust, standard' five-speed manual sequential gearbox, with two allowed per season? If this was designed with a 'neutral', it would also reintroduce missed gear changes...
Guy Dormehl, via email

It's not in the interests of anyone to step backwards. What we have now is a lot better, and relatively cheaper, than it was 10 years ago.

Can you imagine asking some of the current drivers to reach down and manually change gear? They just wouldn't want to know, and the blisters on their hands would be horrendous!

In the past, hitting a false neutral would damage the engine, so the manufacturers would not buy into any changes in that area. I'm all for paying a price for mistakes, but not at the expense of reliability.

With the current eight-speed gearbox and the five-race life, it means the teams know what they need, and the limited fixed ratios allowed at least controls the budget.

Given the team-switching and knowledge-exchange currently happening with fuels and lubricants, why wouldn't F1 mandate a single supplier, as for tyres?
John Gilmour, via email

It's all to do with sponsorship for the teams and development for the lubricant company. Shell pays Ferrari lots of money to allow it to develop fuel, oils and greases to survive the harsh environment of F1.

There is a direct crossover to road-car lubricant development. So it's probably more productive than any other direct relationship between an F1 team and a sponsor.

If there was a single supplier then the development would cease and, in reality, we would all suffer.

As for the tyres, the correlation between what F1 needs and road cars is minimal, if at all.