Ask Gary: How 'radical' can Mercedes go?

How risky and realistic is it for Mercedes to try something radical to keep the gap to Ferrari in 2016?
Metin Mete, via Twitter

The word 'radical' is used a bit randomly, normally by people who don't actually know what they are talking about.

Within the current rules, it is quite difficult to be 'radical' other than getting carried away with suspension layout or gearbox layout. As long as what you come up with meets all its own basic specification requirements and gives you something else that will improve your laptime - such as finding 10 per cent more downforce - then you have to take that risk and go with it.

If you don't, there just might be someone else out there who will. The worst possible situation is to go 'radical' with no performance improvement, so all you get is the headaches without any performance improvement.

Doing this just uses up all of your engineering expertise for nothing, and if you have a problem the season can disappear very quickly while you are fighting the fires. Building a new car is a risk and you have to live by your convictions every year.

Would Formula 1 becoming a total energy limited formula (ie: 1000hp/735kW) with a total fuel limit (ie: 125kg) be a good way forward?
The F1 Engineer, via Twitter

If you look at the current cars going around the track, performance-wise they are fine. They look like racing cars and they stop and accelerate with mind-blowing forces. Sure, they are not as noisy as most people would like, but that comes from the engine spec having to use a turbo.

If you look at the cars between qualifying and the race, they are about five to six seconds slower, and as a spectator I don't think you really notice that. That is mainly because in qualifying the cars are more or less running alone on the track, whereas in the race you have cars ducking and diving, at least on the first few laps.

After that is when it gets a bit boring.

There are lots of different solutions out there to 'fix the problem', but the most important thing to accomplish is to identify precisely what that 'problem' is. No matter what direction the regulations take, there will always be someone who gets it right and someone who gets it wrong.

What the regulations need to do is reduce the risk of escalating costs. Apart from a few teams who are spending stupid amounts of money, the rest of the teams just can't afford the current power-unit costs.

Going back in time... What are your thoughts on the Anson Formula 3 car you designed? I have one in the garage.
Paul Gething, via Twitter

Paul, it was a good if very tough part of my life. And designing and building the Anson was one of the stepping stones that led me into F1 as a designer. I didn't know this at the time, but then I don't think you ever know where the things you do today will take you tomorrow.

I think the cars were ahead of their time, but then I probably would say that. Ron Tauranac of Ralt fame also thought the same, but he also believed they were too expensive to build. In hindsight, he was right on that at least.

It depends on which chassis you have. The SF3 and SF4b were pretty good cars and in those days definitely kept the other chassis makers honest.

Are F1 cars fitted with brake servos?
Tony Surry, via Twitter

No, the brake pressure has to be generated by the driver. At the beginning of the braking process, the driver will put about 160kg of force on the brake pedal, and as the speed reduces and the aerodynamic load on the tyres reduces, the driver has to reduce this force.

This is the most difficult thing to do; just keeping the maximum braking all the way through the braking area is an art in itself.

The perfect situation is when the driver is just applying the initial part of the steering lock and you see that inside front tyre rotating just that little bit slower than the road speed dictates.

If you see this, but with no real locking, the driver has got his braking distance and pedal effort just about right.

Do you think year-old cars could form another class within F1 to increase grids and have their own championship?
Chris Maden, via Twitter

Chris, yes, I think there is room for this because there is room for cars running with different-specification power units. But what I would rather see is a full grid of 26 cars running to one set of regulations and in one championship.

If we didn't have so many prima donnas involved - who are only interested in themselves - and all the effort was put into achieving this, we would have a much more solid platform to go forward with in the future.

How much testing would we need to replace at least 70 to 80 per cent of today's aero grip with mechanical grip, through wider cars and tyres?
Luis Regner, via Twitter

Reducing the aero grip by 70 to 80 per cent would be tough; 50 per cent is probably realistic. In reality, if a set of regulations were written to try to achieve this, then all of this would be done using CFD and windtunnels. Any circuit testing would only be for correlation, so I don't think any extra testing time would be required.

Aerodynamic forces working on the car are all about consistency, and as the car moves around under braking, cornering and acceleration, this needs to be taken into consideration. A quick car is a consistently balanced car.

It is very tempting to keep that few kilos of extra downforce, but it means running the car much stiffer on suspension settings than in the end is possible, so you actually end up losing more than you gain.

As far as the tyres are concerned, Pirelli essentially gets no independent testing, which for such an important part of a racing car is really a very stupid situation.

To be practical, I think Pirelli or any tyre supplier needs four good tests pre-season, and then another four tests during the season. This needs to be done with an independent car supplied by a good midfield team, such as Force India, and driven by an ex-F1 driver with current experience, for example Adrian Sutil.

I am a big believer in what you are suggesting. If the will was there it could be achieved and it will bring better racing.

I'm curious how lock-ups happen under braking in an F1 car. Do modern cars have an ABS system? Or is it only up to the driver's foot to control the pressure on the pedal and prevent lock-ups?
Sasha Selipanov, via Facebook

Sasha, there is no ABS in modern F1 cars. As I mentioned in my reply to an earlier question, the driver has to control the brake pressure and modulate it as required. It is not easy when you consider what happens during a braking episode.

Initially, let's say the car is doing 320km/h and producing 1600kg of aerodynamic downforce. With braking forces in excess of 5G, the car will have a weight transfer off the rear axle onto the front axle of about 250kg. They brake for about one second, which is roughly 100 meters in distance, so they are now doing 80km/h.

At this speed the downforce has reduced to about 100kg, so during that second a driver has a lot to come to terms with and react to.

I saw it mentioned online that you worked for Galles Racing in Indycar - what can you tell us about that part of your career?
Scott Turner, via email

Indycar, then called CART, in the mid-80s was a great formula and very competitive. Running a car on a one-mile oval for something like 250 laps, when you could do full-speed pitstops under a yellow flag, was a fantastic adrenalin rush.

The Indy 500 itself was just a race on its own, and it was such a huge event back then. It was called 'the month of May', and that's what it was - you went to Indy at the start of the month and basically stayed there. You ran not quite every day but just about, for the whole month, and the race was on the last weekend with about 450,000 people watching.

The road and street circuits, other than a couple, would make Knockhill appear like a grand prix track. They were bumpy and dangerous and normally never used from one year to another.

I was also out there with Reynard in 2001, and in reality that era was the beginning of the end for CART. The IRL was just starting to grow and there was no room for two series. Unfortunately both lost out, and what we have now is nothing compared with what it was back then.

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