Are F1 personnel over-privileged?

With the busy calendar for 2016, we hear lots of complaints about team staff having to work too hard. Isn't that just another example of over-privileged, overpaid people in F1 not realising how lucky they are to be in a line or work most can only dream of?
Mark Bates, via email

Mark, having worked in F1 for many years I can assure you it is no walk in the park. That said, I wouldn't change a day of it.

When I started in 1973, we would head off to the European races either in the truck or in a blue Transit van. The team was made up of about eight people; each would take their turn driving and we would normally drive straight through.

When you arrived at the circuit on a Thursday you didn't actually expect to sleep again until the Sunday night, or if you did you took it as a bonus.

If you wanted something to eat, well, you went and found it or you starved. When I started I was earning £25 per week, which for me was a fortune.

It is very different now, but then so is life in general. You just couldn't treat people like you used to in those days.

F1 is not just about working hard, it's about doing it thousands of miles from your family. That's what makes it difficult, and all these back-to-back races mean a lot more time away.

It often sounds very glamorous, but I can assure you it is not. You can only take so much of airports, hotels and racetracks. In reality, you see very little else.

Are the people involved in the sport now any different from those early days? No. To be in F1, you need to be adaptable and ready for anything that can be thrown at you. The lights that start the race won't wait for you if you're not ready.

I don't think it is the individuals that have moved F1 to this untouchable pedestal that it appears to sit on. It is how things have changed with employment requirements in general over the years.

How do teams determine speed relative to competitors through corners?
Lorenzo Maimone, via Twitter

In terms of measuring relative performance in corners, teams have access to GPS data both for their own cars and their rivals. This is one method that gives an indication of performance in the turns.

As to how you achieve that speed, it's about the compromise between downforce, which gives you the grip, and the drag level, which dictates your straightline speed. These two go hand in hand.

The more downforce you have, the faster you go around the corners. But that means you have more drag, so go slower down the straight.

The rear wing cannot be adjusted or changed after qualifying, so during the practice sessions the teams will compare their straightline speed to other cars.

Once you are competitive in that area the downforce is defined. It's not easy to pass in a corner so a little lower corner speed is not such a big problem.

When Red Bull dominated, it always ran as much downforce as possible. This provided the highest possible grip and, as we know, the team was normally on pole position.

With this extra grip, Red Bull could get away on the first lap and have a big enough gap to whoever was chasing to more or less eliminate any chance of being overtaken.

But without pole position, Red Bull was a little bit more vulnerable.

In all the time you have been involved with motorsport, what has been the cleverest - or your favourite - innovation that you've seen?
Owen Edwards, via Twitter

Owen, I have seen many innovations through my time and they are all clever.

Ground effect, fan cars, carbon suspension, sequential gearboxes, active suspension, full-car electro-hydraulic actuation, blown diffusers, double diffusers, f-duct rear wings and now hybrid technology to name but a few.

If I had to pick one or two, it would be ground effect or blown diffusers as these are both developments that, in reality, come from nothing and cost little.

It's just about managing the existing airflow to give you a positive force.

Is the fuel consumption we see on TV 100 per cent real?
@mecoturbo1981, via Twitter

Yes, but with a couple of provisos. What we see is a snapshot of fuel consumption and is updated many times per lap.

But not all the cars are at the same track position, so the leader should have used a little more than the cars running behind him.

The other thing is that FOM doesn't know how much fuel the team has put into each car. The maximum usage is 100kg for the race distance, but if a team decides for performance reasons to run the race only using 90kg, then you might see a driver using a lot less fuel but he might be in a more critical state than another car that has actually used more fuel.

Depending on the circuit, 10kg of weight is equivalent to around 0.3 seconds laptime, so a car with 90kg of fuel in it should go 0.3s faster per lap.

But they may have to alter their driving or the engine set-up to actually achieve the race distance, so the advantage may be cut down to 0.1s per lap.

But over a 55-lap race that is still 5.5s faster. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out as black and white as that.

Why is tyre-supplier choice a commercial decision instead of a technical decision?
@CalixtoErico, via Twitter

If you have a look around the circuit and see how many Pirelli advertising hoardings there are, that will explain why the decision is made commercially.

Pirelli spends a huge amount of money advertising and if it goes F1 will be a lot poorer.

It is always easier to sell a supply contract to a company if the TV figures are on the up, but much more difficult if a supplier leaves and the viewing figures are dropping.

All the big companies involved in any form of sponsorship are either using what or who they are sponsoring for development purposes or balancing TV time and viewer numbers against advertising budget.

If the numbers don't justify it then they will be off advertising through a different medium. Unfortunately that is what's currently happening to F1.

How does the airflow around the tyres work in an F1 car?
@Curva130Rm via Twitter

If you take a wheel in isolation, the tyre is trying to turn on top of the airflow but the downforce is pushing the tyre down onto the road. So air is being displaced around the sides of the tyre's contact patch where it meets the ground.

Above that, airflow is also displaced around the sides of the tyre up to about (if you look at the left-front from the outside) a '10 o'clock' position. Above that the airflow accelerates over the top of the tyre, which actually works like an upside-down wing and tries to lift the tyre off the ground.

Basically, the airflow that hits the front of the tyre is trying to get back into the low-pressure area behind the same wheel and tyre.

That said, any of the car's aerodynamic devices - like the front wing and sidepod leading edge at the front of the car and the diffuser, rear wing and rear-wing endplate - will have an affect on this airflow.

This is why we see so much development to front and rear-wing endplates. If you can manage the airflow in these areas better then it will allow the front and rear wings to work better and more consistently. It will also reduce the drag created by the open wheels and tyres, giving better straightline speed.

The wheels and tyres of an F1 car are responsible for around 35 per cent of the car's drag. That's why LMP1 cars are so fast in a straight line - they are much more efficient because of their covered wheels.

Why not turn the DRS protocol around and allow its use unless the driver is within one second of a car, and apply this not just to the trailing car but the car ahead too? The lead car could not use DRS to escape a close competitor, while the following car could use it to catch up but not to do the final bit of work.
Matthew Douthat, via email

Matthew, that's a reasonable bit of lateral thinking. But if it was implemented and both drivers were using it at the same parts of the track, then the following car would never catch the leading car and if, for any reason, they did catch up the following car would not have any advantage to help them pull off an overtaking manoeuvre.

If it was down to me, the DRS would only be allowed to be used a certain amount of times per race distance and it would be down to each driver when they wanted to use it. It could be either to catch someone, help overtake someone or to defend against someone overtaking you.

A much better idea would be to put it in the bin and then we might just get down to drivers again learning how to overtake another car without outside assistance.

Overtaking has always been difficult and it always will be, but when you have something like DRS the drivers get spoiled.

If you look at Max Verstappen, who is a new and inexperienced F1 driver, he doesn't seem to have realised that overtaking is not possible.

Perhaps some of our more established F1 drivers need to take him aside and go through the facts of life with him. Or maybe not...

In the '70s, the rear tyres of F1 cars were not only much wider than the fronts but they were also significantly larger in diameter as well. What is the advantage of such an arrangement? And when the fronts and rears became equal-diameter, did drivers feel a massive change in the handling of the cars?
Praveen Titus, via email

Praveen, the size of the tyres or at least the size of the tyre-contact patch needs to go in line with the force that is being applied to the tyre-contact patch. This is the sum of the aerodynamic load centre and the mechanical weight distribution position.

The faster the car goes, the more downforce is produced. So for high-speed circuits like Spa, Silverstone or Suzuka, the aerodynamic load centre is dominant.

For tracks such as Monaco or to a certain extent the Hungaroring the mechanical weight distribution comes into play and is more critical.

In the early '70s, the cars didn't produce much downforce - probably less than five per cent of current levels. So the mechanical weight distribution was the all-important criteria.

The cars still had lots of engine power so traction was the important factor. The weight distribution was therefore much further rearwards in those days, so big racey-looking rear tyres were required.

Got a question for Gary Anderson? Send it to askgary@autosport.com, use #askgaryF1 on Twitter or look out for our posts on Facebook giving you the chance to have your question answered