Ask Gary Anderson: F1's financial problems

What can you tell us about the grid size for next year?
James Negus, via Facebook

James, since the world financial crisis struck in 2008 Formula 1 has had its head firmly buried in the sand.

Over the years that I have been involved in this sport, there was always a time lag between a financial crisis and its effects being felt in F1.

This is because of the sponsorship contracts that are already in place and the fact that a lot of the big companies that have been making lots of money for many years initially try to get through it by continuing to advertise.

But economic reality always catches up with them. When this happens, the budgets start to get smaller or vanish altogether.

As an example, just look at McLaren this year. It has not had a title sponsor on its car all season. If it didn't have the finances gathered over the last few years to dip into, it could be in as much trouble as Caterham or Marussia.

From what I hear, as many as three teams do not seem to be far behind that, so that's five teams out of 11 that have financial question marks hanging over them.

If the worst happened, it would leave us with a 10-car grid, which would mean F1 as we know it would just disappear.

Something has to be done to get the teams to work together and that means the 'works' teams supplying cars, engines and some sponsorship to the smaller teams.

If this happens then it needs to run as two championships running within one race. In effect, we have that now so it would just need to be formalised.

Other than divine intervention, what would it take for F1 to return to 1970/80s style of one-car teams?
@LesRosbifs, via Twitter

I don't think running a one-car team is financially viable. It would not halve the costs, so it is much more cost-effective for a team to run two cars.

If you just simply look at the costs of running an F1 car it is a staggering sum.

At a race weekend, each car will complete around 750 kilometres. So a two-car team will do 1500 kilometres. Multiply that by 19 races and you get a total of 28,500 kilometres. Add to that to the winter testing mileage of around 7000 kilometres and you get a total season team mileage of roughly 34,500 kilometres.

A small budget in F1 is knocking on the door of £80million, so divide that by the mileage and you get a running cost of £2318 per kilometre.

A large budget is in the region of £200million, so that number becomes £5797 per kilometre. Both of these figures are absurd and that is what needs to be looked at and reduced immediately.

Why have none of the other teams tried copying Mercedes designs, such as the nose, this season, seeing how successful it has been?
Dave Fontana, via Facebook

Dave, performance is not just about one component. It is about getting the complete concept to work as one.

I am pretty sure that a lot of teams have had a look at the Mercedes concept and found it the same as, or even detrimental to, their own aerodynamic figures.

If they had kept this nose concept and then started to develop the car downstream then that is when you start to make progress. But that effect would take a lot of time and it would be very expensive as it ends up with more or less a complete new aerodynamic body surface.

Anyone who says that the nose concept is not as important to the overall aerodynamic potential of an F1 car as it used to be is talking rubbish.

But if you change the nose alone it just means that the rest of the car downstream is not optimised around a nose concept that gives you better airflow between the front wheels.

Is a comeback of refuelling in F1 realistic? In my opinion introducing a variable like weight in the car will make things interesting.
Aleksandar Bilbilov, via Twitter

F1 does seem to go around in circles, but I don't think we will see refuelling anytime soon.

There are many things that can be done to improve the suspense of F1. But the problem is that the powers that be don't react. They keep saying they don't want a kneejerk reaction.

Well, I can assure you the way F1 works at the moment we are never going to see a kneejerk reaction.

I have seen a lot of changes in how F1 is managed and I have to say, Bernie, that F1 needs you in control. No one else can do what Bernie has done for F1 and we are now at a critical point. If the teams have any sense they will get behind him.

Are engine manufacturers allowed to change any part of the engine under current regulations?
@u_cyborg, via Twitter

I assume you mean change any part of the engine from a design point of view, in which case the answer is no.

From season to season, a certain percentage can be changed. It is quite complicated, but there is a list of components that can be altered. Some of the components that offer a larger potential performance improvement count higher than others.

The whole mess F1 is in financially at the moment is down to the introduction of the new-for-2014 power unit. This was introduced at a stupid time because the big boys, Mercedes and Renault, wanted a different challenge.

Ferrari couldn't have cared less, but now the smaller teams whose only way of getting an engine is to pay are suffering the consequences.

Many people, including Bernie, did stand up and say that the introduction of this engine should be postponed. But the powers that be didn't listen and now a huge amount of people are about to lose their jobs because of this stupid decision.

I ask all of you one question: What would have been wrong with the 2013 engines down-tuned to a maximum of 16,000 rpm, doubling the KERS input and output and limiting the amount of engines for the season to six?

We would still have had the noise we all love and a bit more so-called green energy. But, more importantly, we would have reduced the engine cost per team with fewer engines instead of tripling or quadrupling the power unit costs.

What can you tell us about mental strength in Formula 1 as new Toro Rosso recruit Max Verstappen says "it's bullshit"?
@OscarFV21, via Twitter

Is mental strength bullshit? I don't think so. Actually, Michael Schumacher was the first guy that I believe really brought mental strength and mental fitness to F1.

Yes, many drivers before him were very strong in the head but Michael used it as one of the tools to win races. If he could, he would try to do it in such a way that other drivers were left wondering how.

Mental strength is about not letting things get to you. It is so easy to give up and not find a way around a problem. The races are long and if there is any way that you can adapt to a problem, you never know if others are going to have bigger problems than you.

I have always said that Michael adapted better to the car he had at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon than any other driver and that is where a lot of his success came from.

An example of this was when he drove for Benetton and had a gearbox problem during the race at Barcelona. He was stuck in fifth gear but after couple of laps he was putting in fast laptimes and went on to finish second.

I was told that it got to Damon Hill so badly that at the next test he did in the Williams he actually tried driving in the same way to see if he could manage what Michael had achieved.

What does Gary think of Caterham patching up a broken wishbone? Dangerous as hell or acceptable?
Liam O'Rourke, via Twitter

I don't know the full detail of this repair but I don't believe they actually fixed a broken wishbone. If they did and had to do this because they didn't have any spares then that's a bit dodgy and I don't think it is acceptable to put a driver's life in danger.

But I believe they broke a wishbone and identified why the failure had occurred, they then strengthened the spare wishbones to eliminate the risk of another failure.

If this is what happened then it is about reacting to a situation and when you have a group of intelligent engineers around you that is what they get paid for.

I have been in this position myself and when you have a failure this late in the season it is normally an assembly problem. As long as the strengthening is done with the quality control it requires then I believe it is fully acceptable.

You have talked about some of the best drivers you worked with in your career. But who was the worst and why?
Daniel Smith, via email

I am afraid I can't really answer this question as the ones I would list still show up at some races.

I think it is fair enough to say I am a fan of young and hungry drivers - I like a driver to go out and wring the car's neck to get a laptime out of it. The old hardened professionals who know it all don't really light my fire.