Six of the best: AUTOSPORT answers your Spanish GP questions

David Marshall: "There seem to be conflicting stories regarding Ferrari. Some reports suggest Barcelona is crucial for them, but Fernando Alonso has come out and said being on the front isn't make or break. What's the reality?

Edd Straw: It depends what your definition of 'make or break' is. Around the time of the Australian and Malaysian grands prix, the focus was very much on a big step in Barcelona. But as it became apparent that Ferrari couldn't deliver a big enough improvement (which is not to say that it didn't do a good job, because you don't make a net gain of not far off a second in one go), those expectations were pushed back.

Alonso said after the Mugello test that Barcelona is the first step in a series of upgrades with packages to follow at Montreal and Valencia that will get it "close" to the frontrunners. You might say that it's a case of tomorrow never comes, but frankly it takes a long time to catch up in contemporary F1. The days when you could strap a fan on the back or slap on an upside-down wing and expect to take a leap forward have long gone.

For Ferrari, it's a question of continuous progress. The Mugello package and the additional new parts that ran on the Friday of the Spanish Grand Prix should add up to a net gain. That will give Ferrari the platform it needs to build on in the following races. It's crucial insofar as Ferrari must show an improvement if it is to get into the mix for regular wins, but it's part of the development curve, not the end of it.

Straw covered di Resta's Formula Renault UK campaign in 2004 © LAT

Edwin Lee: I'd like to ask a bit of an unusual question about life as a reporter. Going to each grand prix, do you get any time to watch any of the other races - GP2 for example? And do you know - or need to know - about younger drivers in similar categories in case they break into Formula 1?

ES: Given the level of output of AUTOSPORT on grand prix racing, inevitably my focus is fully on F1. However, I retain a very keen interest in junior racing and, in fact, all sorts of other categories. I will always keep an eye on GP2 - for example I could right now reel of the top 10 from qualifying off the top of my head - but whether I can watch the races live depends a lot on what else is going on as that will often be time spent in the paddock speaking to people and gathering information and material. But my generic digital TV recording box has various categories, including GP2 on season link, so I will always watch the races when I'm back at home if I've missed them (and often even if I haven't).

There is a need to know who the up and coming drivers are, although my interest extends beyond that. It's always fascinating to follow the development of various drivers and it allows you to tell the difference between the very good drivers who could win races and championships and the genuine potential superstars, of which there are few.

Among the drivers who I followed in the junior categories were Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Paul di Resta and Nico Rosberg and all showed clear signs that they could be top-liners. You can often pick out the genuinely good ones not just from watching, but from speaking to people who work with them and regularly grilling whoever is covering the various categories for AUTOSPORT.

I would urge anyone who is a big fan of F1 to invest some time getting to know and watching the lower formulas. There's some very good racing and some great stories out there.

Stewart thinks di Resta has a huge future © XPB

Ilan Spero: I'd like to know what AUTOSPORT thinks of Jackie Stewart's praise for Paul di Resta and his suggestion that Ferrari might do well to look at the Scot. There is an obvious bias, but does he have a point? I admit I thought he would be blown away by Hulkenberg but it hasn't happened (yet)...

ES: I agree completely with Jackie Stewart on this one. While he's almost obliged to wave the Saltire for any up and coming Scottish drivers, I think he's absolutely right on this one and completely buy into what he's saying.

Di Resta has always been a class act. I first covered him when he raced in Formula Renault UK and was hugely impressed with him. While he didn't win the title, he was clearly a guy with a huge amount of ability. His performances in the evaluation tests for the McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award proved (which he won) in 2004 proved that.

Since then, I've followed his performances in F3 (winning the Euro Series against his team-mate Vettel) and DTM and would happily tell anyone who would listen that he was a guy who could be a star in F1. Last year, he excelled. While Adrian Sutil got the initiative late in the season, that was to be expected given how tough it is for rookie drivers now.

As for the battle with Hulkenberg, he is the other driver who, right now, I would be happy to call a potential world champion. It is an absolutely outstanding line-up and frankly I suspect, over the season, they will both be relatively evenly matched. If one does emerge on top, not just in terms of statistics but when taking all factors are taken into account, they will have done stunningly well.

As an illustration of how highly I rate both, were I running an F1 team and the few proven gold standard drivers (ie title-winners) weren't available, those two would be top of the list to sign. And even if an Alonso was available, I'd pair him with one of those two.

Edward Hinton: Does McLaren's use of the high nose highlight that its original philosophy was wrong? And is the new configuration an ideal solution or simply the best it can manage without making drastic changes?

ES: If McLaren continues to use the nose then, yes, it is an admission of that. McLaren has found that it has pretty much got the most out of the downforce-producing potential of the airflow under its low nose and now wants to get more. It's no great surprise. Of the top 10 teams, McLaren is the only one to take that route. It was always likely that there was more to be got out of running a high noise than running a low one. But that's not to say that it's a magic bullet.

McLaren's new 'high' nose could be an admission its philosophy was wrong © LAT

The nose that we saw at Mugello and Barcelona is a halfway house. Or, rather, a three-quarters house. To get the nose as high as possible, you need a monocoque with the nose at the maximum permissible height and therefore have to include the step that most cars have. I would be surprised if McLaren wasn't seriously evaluating doing a new monocoque, especially as it seemed to be running a piece on Lewis Hamilton's car during free practice to get an idea of the visibility offered by such a design.

Ben Mince: Given Daniel Ricciardo's qualifying performance in Bahrain, and the fact that Barcelona is the first circuit both he and Jean-Eric Vergne know well, can we expect Toro Rosso to make the top 10 again? And in your opinion, who has impressed the team most so far this year?

ES: Both have had some very impressive moments this year. Vergne has, by his own admission, overdone it a bit at times in qualifying, which is to be expected from a rookie. As for Ricciardo, he really caught the eye with his stunning qualifying performance in Bahrain. If the car is capable of making the top 10, both have a decent chance of doing it. But what both need to improve is their overall consistency. But you'd expect that from a pairing with only 19 F1 starts between them.

As for what the team thinks, I can only say that both are regarded as having the potential to emerge as frontrunning grand prix drivers. Technical director Giorgio Ascanelli, who is one of the shrewdest and most honest evaluators of drivers in F1 and who can be taken at his words, was asked about this in Friday's press conference in Spain by Mike Doodson (who wrote a very fine Nelson Piquet piece in this week's AUTOSPORT magazine, by the way), sums it up well.

"The qualifying in Bahrain from Daniel was quite extraordinary," said Ascanelli. "It wasn't just one lap, the last lap, it was the whole of Q1 - all runs in Q1, in Q2 and Q3 were extremely good. It was like what I've already said about Sebastian Vettel when he set the famous lap - which I've quoted many times - in Valencia when he was running on full tanks and on used tyres and the lap time was, to my eyes, quite exceptional. I think that Sebastian made a big step that day when he noticed that and he thought about it and he could repeat it.

Ricciardo and Vergne have impressed Toro Rosso this year © XPB

"Unfortunately we cannot repeat it yet because the race was another story. It's down to the drivers to find the answers in themselves and in us to help them finding answers.

"I would say that Daniel has done something that is quite extraordinary. 'JEV' has a big heart, he is one of the best fuel controllers that I have seen in my life but this is only his fifth event and I think we have to wait a little bit."

Anthony Allan: There has been a lot of talk about tyres, including a bizarre analogy from Michael Schumacher. What is your view on Pirelli's strategy?

ES: Pirelli has been fairly clear in what it is not only trying to do, but has been asked to do - produce tyres that have a high level of thermal degradation and pose a challenge for drivers and teams. Schumacher's post-Bahrain comments have thrown the debate about what F1 tyres should be into overdrive. I see where he is coming from and with multiple tyre suppliers, it would be great to have the sorts of tyres he would prefer. But given the reality that a control tyre is necessary, the current situation suits me fine.

The impression is that it's some kind of lottery. Frankly, it isn't. While certainly track temperatures help certain teams in certain conditions, that has always been the case to a greater or lesser extent. The fastest drivers are still the fastest and the best still win. That should always be at the core of grand prix racing. And given that everything is so close in terms of pace this year, inevitably tiny swings in performance can turn a car from a winner into a marginal top 10 runner.

The rubber is a limiting factor and tyre management is vital, but the idea that drivers are rolling around at low revs with their arm hanging out of the window is misleading. What the tyres have done is helped to create a kind of racing that is less predictable. With the kind of tyres we had in 2010, drivers were able to attack more and the gaps in performance between cars were extended. That would have led to Red Bull dominating last season by a greater margin and far more of the kinds of races that many fans complained about a few years. There's always room for improvement, but Pirelli is also a convenient excuse for anyone struggling. Not winning, blame the tyres...

The purist in me likes the idea of the ultimate rubber being used in F1. But that purist also accepts that F1's rules have been bastardised over the years and inevitably everything is a compromise. It all depends what kind of racing you want. As long as the best drivers and teams still prevail, which they still do, then it's fine by me. There's also an element of expediency, because few tyre companies are going to want to come into F1 to supply the field if nobody has any reason to talk about the rubber.

And F1 cars racing on rims is going to be far less spectacular than what we have now.