Ask Gary: What difference will start rules make?

Which teams do you think will benefit from the rule changes regarding the start?
Matt Leary, via Facebook

As we've seen over the last couple of years, all of the teams can make very good starts. It's more down to something not being correctly set up on the day that means a team or a driver makes a poor start.

The start is mainly about managing engine RPM. The driver will sit on the startline with the engine at a certain RPM, he will have one clutch lever fully disengaged and the other lever at what's called the bite point.

This is the point where the engine will drive the car forward but still slip a little and is the clutch position that most effort is put into finding. It's much like what you do with your road car when moving away from a standing position.

When the lights go out, the driver will release the fully disengaged clutch lever, leaving the clutch lever that's at the bite point in its pre-determined position. As the car starts to move the engine revs drop.

Let's say this is now 4000rpm, the engine mapping will be set so that if the revs drop any more the torque will increase and if the revs rise the torque will also increase. With both these scenarios the driver will get more wheelspin.

As the clutch still slips a little the increased heat in the clutch transmits more torque through it so this acts like you're releasing the clutch slowly.

This increases torque transmission through the clutch. Combined with the fact that the driver can play with the clutch lever, they still have control over the means to minimise wheelspin and keep the engine in that little valley of driveable torque until you get enough grip to release the clutch completely.

As far as I'm aware, the new start regulations will eliminate the bite-point detection that most teams and drivers put so much effort into. This leaves it down to the drivers' own feeling of where that point is.

I would also like to have seen something done to remove the possibility of using both clutch levers at the same time in different release positions.

I don't think one team will suffer more than any other. It'll just be more about the driver doing the right thing as he gets the feedback through the seat of his pants.

Why are F1 teams spending more money today than they did a decade ago despite all the cost-cutting measures like the engine freeze, engine and gearbox limits, limited testing in-season, no spare cars and more TV revenue?
Anthony Kernich, via Facebook

Anthony, F1 teams will always spend as much revenue as they can bring in - some even spend a bit more.

F1 is about competition and competition can be like a drug. Believing that you can do better if you just had that gold-plated widget on your car leads you to sometimes spend more than you should.

When a spending cut is imposed in certain areas, teams will spend in other areas to make up for it.

There have never been any cost controls put in place regarding aerodynamic-component development.

They've tried to do this by reducing windtunnel time, but that only means that teams are making components that are not fully researched.

If windtunnels were not allowed, teams would still be making aerodynamic components but most of it would be guesswork.

They need to reduce the amount of times a team can introduce aerodynamic components. A bit like the gearbox controls, certain aerodynamic components should have to do 'X' races before they can be changed to a different specification.

Taking your points one at a time;

Engine freeze: the current engine costs are higher than they've been for at least the last 10 years, if not longer. The old V8s had reduced costs dramatically, but the new power unit probably costs four times as much.

Gearbox and gear ratio limits: this has certainly reduced costs so is a good thing. But it's probably a drop in the ocean - I would estimate a saving of £3million per season, but the increased engine costs are around £15m.

Limited testing: all of the teams, or at least the ones that can afford it, have gone off and spent twice as much on state-of-the-art driver-in-loop simulators.

This, unfortunately, has separated the haves from the have-nots and as we see from the fact that not all of the cars' developments work at the circuit, the systems are still a long way from the real world.

Spare cars: the teams still take a spare car to every race, it's just that it can't be sitting there on its wheels. It's kept in a crate partly assembled and when something happens that means they need to change the chassis and the mechanics have to work twice as hard to put it all together.

TV revenue: yes, there is more money about but when it comes to allocating it the big teams, such as Ferrari etc, command more of it so the little guy trying to survive sees very little of it. This needs sorting, but will it ever happen? I doubt it very much.

Do you think there is any point in the August shutdown? Surely team personnel are just able to work away from the office and on laptops etc?
John Barnett, via email

John, I think this is probably a question best answered by my daughter. Her husband works in the industry and if it wasn't for the August break that coincides with the school holidays, they would never get away as a family.

During my time directly involved in F1, this August break didn't happen and we managed, but when something as sensible as this is put in place there will be a lot of resentment if it's taken away.

As you say, the engineers can just work away from the office, but in reality it's never quite as easy as that and these things are supposed to be monitored.

But for everyone involved, and that includes the drivers, it gives them time away from the office and that can be more productive than working under the pressure-cooker that F1 is on a daily basis.

Is there an F1 team that no longer exists that you wish you had worked for, and when?
John Potter, via Facebook

John, I liked being involved with the underdog. I don't think I could have coped with the treadmill that is a big team.

Since I got directly involved in F1 design, I worked for the only two teams that I felt were underdogs: Jordan and Stewart. We won races together so for most of the time it was a great environment to be in.

Sauber was around at the same time and did a really good job, but I never fancied going to Switzerland and during the '90s it was a real Swiss team both mentally and in how they worked.

I think the rest that came between 1990 and even up until now underestimated the size of the challenge. It will be very interesting to see how Haas copes next year.

I suppose the one where I feel I didn't achieve what I wanted was Jaguar - but more on that later.

Who do you think is the best technical director in F1 at the moment - other than Adrian Newey?
Barry Barnes, via email

Very difficult question to answer as I think there are a few out there that are very clever, but it's never just one person that makes it all work.

It's like drivers: who is the best? It's always down to many things lining up at the same time!

If the budgets and facilities were all equal then it would be much easier to select one, but if I was drafting a list my top-five would be:

James Key
James Allison
Paddy Lowe
Andrew Green
Aldo Costa

Some of them have had the opportunity of working with a big well-financed team and some haven't, but for me they all have good vision and commitment.

As Formula E's regulations become more open, is it the kind of thing you would like to get involved with or would have liked to were the category around when you were working full-time?
Mitchell Scott, via email

No, not really for me.

Formula E is not about racing, it's about a show. The only good thing about it is that it's a good home for drivers that have missed the boat in F1, and they are the ones that make the show work.

Electric-powered cars are a long way from being able to compete in what we currently know as a race.

In fact I think Formula E is actually highlighting how far battery technology is from taking over from fossil fuels.

For me, the controlled pitstops to change the cars are just not racing.

If they need to do that because of battery capacity, then why not have two drivers and do the race as a relay? One car comes in, crosses a line and the other car goes out with a different driver aboard.

My question has two parts - with the move to wider tyres, the potential reintroduction of ground effect and even a possible change of tyre manufacturer, is there any chance of them being able to get rid of the tyre-warmers/ovens? Secondly, how big an impact would a change to 18in wheels have on spring rates and suspension? Would there be more visible suspension movement?
Chris Bowman, via email

Chris, the tyre-warmers could be got rid of tomorrow, but why? I assume that it would be because of cost, so let's look at it in a slightly different way.

To run a top two-car F1 team for a season on average costs £200million.

That money is spent in many ways, but in the end it's all about two cars pounding around a race track.

The mileage completed by each team over 20 races is roughly 30,000km, or just under 20,000 miles, plus pre- and in-season testing of roughly 10,000km. That gives us a total of 40,000km or 25,000 miles.

That equates to £5000 per km, or on a 5km track that becomes £25,000 per lap. If it takes one extra lap every time the car leaves the garage to get the tyres up to temperature, that's a huge amount of money and I think you could buy a lot of tyre blankets for that amount.

As far a 18in rims are concerned, I'm not sure you would see much difference. The current suspension stiffness is based around the stiffness of the current tyre, you just can't have one component in series doing all the work and the other doing nothing.

Fit 18in rims and you should end up with a stiffer tyre, but because of that it would allow the teams to actually go stiffer with suspension settings and still be able to achieve the stiffness balance between the tyre and suspension.

The Jaguar F1 team was such a good idea and promised so much. What went wrong?
Liam O'Rourke, via Facebook

Liam, this column is not long enough for me to go into too much detail. Suffice to say that when Jackie Stewart let go of the reins and the Ford management took over, it was like the light-switch had been turned off. The motivation just disappeared out of the team.

Ford and the people that worked for them believed they knew it all. As one of them used to say in meetings, 'Do it Ford's way or we'll get someone that will'. How's that for motivation?

One of the things Ford had at that time was a reporting system that had a weight per week of research. So if they did four weeks' research on a project for you, they would have to hand in a report that weighed 'X' pounds.

It wasn't based on content, it was the weight of the actual document. So things would just get repeated and repeated and basically never read.

My first request was to give me a summary of the report on any research project on one A4 sheet, and from that I'll decide if there's any value in going further. Needless to say that didn't go down too well with the top brass.

Yes, there were problems with the Jaguar R1, but the basis of the car was pretty good. When you're in this sort of situation it's about motivating people to solve those problems and not about kicking them when they're down.

If motivated correctly they will actually find more energy to keep on learning and fighting after they've overcome the current problems.

The management changes that kept happening after I was sent on my merry way were just an example of how no one was actually steering the ship.

I reckon they thought that if they changed the management structure often enough, they would strike it lucky one of those times.

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