Why the next two weeks are critical for F1 teams

The 2017 Formula 1 season is almost upon us, and with the first of the new cars set to emerge next week, nobody really knows where they stand.

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in F1 and every team will believe they have made more progress than their direct competitors. But right now the pressure is on the teams, as even the last two weeks before your new baby hits the track for the first time are vitally important to how the season unfolds.

Most of the teams will be able to get a car up and running for the first test easily enough. But if anything goes wrong with any component, the car can be compromised while modifications are carried out.

That's why parts will be arriving in Spain thick and fast. It'll be a busy week for EasyJet, so don't expect any cheap flights!

It will probably be the last day of the second test before we see what might be considered the Australia-spec packages. I can assure you that anyone saying what they run in Australia will be very different to at the end of Barcelona testing is in trouble and are attempting the 'miracle fix'.

When you have major regulation changes, every day brings something new to the performance table. But the need for detailed design work and manufacturing lead times means decisions need to be made at the point where components actually need to be signed off.

That's why the component you have when the car hits the track isn't necessarily the best, it's just the best design you had at the point when manufacturing needed to start.

Most teams concentrate on reducing their manufacturing times. Actually, this is just as important as component research. It's no good having components lined up and ready to go being delayed by a manufacturing problem.

Teams have grown dramatically over the past two decades. When I started my F1 career at Brabham in 1973, a two-car team comprised around 12 people. Eight would travel to the races, with four back at base making a few bits.

In 1991, we started the season with 27 people at Jordan and most of them travelled. By the end of the season, we were up to around 40 people.

Now, a small team is knocking on the door of 300 and a big team is around 800! A lot of this explosion in man/woman power is in the design and research areas, but the main difference from a small to a big team is in manufacturing.

A good example of the impact of this would be if Force India came up with a new front wing. It might take it a month to get it made, but a big team like Red Bull might be able to do it in a week.

In the research and design areas, the extra resource gives the bigger teams more opportunity when they are researching a new concept.

I always think of it as arriving at a roundabout with three exits. I know I want to get to the beach, but I don't know which direction to go.

Well, the big teams have the personnel to head off down all three exits. When one gets to the mountains, they can stop and head in a different direction knowing that isn't the way to the beach. Another gets to an inland city and closes off that line of research. They both know that another part of the team will have got to the beach.

For a small team, it is much more difficult. They get to the same roundabout but only have the people to take one road. So you have to make a choice as to which way to go.

Pick the correct one and they get there just as quickly and effectively as the big team. But take the wrong one and it takes so long to turn around and find another route that you are stuck with it for the season.

So if you're running a small team, get out of the car, let the sea air blow in your face, smell the salt and then head in that direction.

In the design stage, luck doesn't play such a big part. It's simply about optimising the concept that you commit to. Do that and maximise its potential and you will normally be in the mix somewhere.

A concept that is correct always feels good as it gives you returns from every windtunnel or CFD test. When you build that kind of momentum, everybody feels it and gets that little bit more momentum.

If your concept isn't correct, it's like pulling teeth from a chicken. Nothing you do takes you anywhere, so if it gets like this the sooner you bite the bullet and change direction, the sooner you will recover. Keep going on the wrong path too long and it can adversely effect the whole year.

That's why 2017 is such a challenging season. Next year will be different as the die will already be cast in a certain direction and everyone's eyes will be open. But it's never a good methodology simply to copy others, because you don't necessarily know why a team has gone in that direction.

I remember speaking to Adrian Newey way back when he was at McLaren and we were talking about Ferrari's three-main-element front wing. He was saying he didn't understand why Ferrari was running it, as every time McLaren tried it in the windtunnel it lost downforce.

Just look at front wings now, with six or seven main elements commonplace. What a difference a few years can make to the thinking. And with such big changes, there has been plenty of need to think about how you approach the cars.

Rule changes of this magnitude come along at regular intervals. For 1994, driver aids such as active suspension and traction control were banned. In 1998 narrow-track cars and grooved tyres arrived, then in 2009 the massively-simplified aerodynamic regulations transformed the look of the cars.

Back in 2012, the ungainly stepped section between the nose and the chassis appeared, before the switch to the low frontal area a year later. Then, for 2014, we had the unprecedented introduction of an all-new multi-element power unit, controversial because of the loss of the shrill and exhilarating engine nose and its replacement by what sounds like one with a silencer or two on it.

Most of these changes brought some degree of controversy, but teams just have to accept that it is what it is even though I'm not convinced any of them did anything to improve the show. And that is the important thing.

F1 has to remember it only exists because of the fans and if these people stop watching, the sponsors and the teams' budgets stop coming in. F1 could be a glacier melting far quicker than the however-many-terabyte CFD computers could ever have predicted.

Let's be honest, Liberty Media isn't in this for the fun of the chase. It is cash, plain and simple, that it is after and those involved won't stand around twiddling their thumbs if the bank balance isn't going in the right direction.

Over the winter, we have heard a lot of opinions on the new regulations. But good, bad or indifferent they are what they are and it's down to the individual teams to interpret them as best they can. With wider cars and lower wings, as well as the wider Pirelli tyres, the cars should look a bit more racey, which can only be a good thing.

So the question is, will we see runaway victors as we did in 2009 with Brawn, then Red Bull from 2010-13 and Mercedes since then? Or will it do what we all want and bring the field closer together.

A lot of people, myself included, don't think it will have that impact. But only time will tell. Whatever happens, with new ownership in Liberty Media, Bernie Ecclestone sidelined and Ross Brawn on board, what happens in 2017 is going to be very important for F1.