Ask Tim: The underachieving F1 team that needs to "pull its socks up"

In what areas is McLaren still outperforming Renault and how much of that is down to the drivers?

Jamie Holding, via email

I don't think it's as simple as saying 'the drivers are doing a better job'. Looking at the Renault and its engine customer, the McLaren car is better. Carlos Sainz Jr came close to outqualifying Alex Albon in the Red Bull for the Spanish Grand Prix and beat him in the race to finish sixth, which was a fine effort. It's been strong everywhere so far and seems to have a good balance, while Renault didn't manage to get either of its cars into Q3 in Spain and continues to blow hot and cold.

At times Daniel Ricciardo has shown good pace in the Renault and his lap to go fifth at the Anniversary GP was excellent, although I was a bit taken aback by his comment that he thought he could be mixing it with the Racing Points, which didn't ever materialise.

A lot of the people that were at Renault when I was there have since moved on to other teams, but also there are a lot of people still in the hierarchy who are very fixed in their ways. It takes almost a completely new broom to take on fresh ideas. If Adrian Newey turned up there, you would have a completely different car all of a sudden. But it hasn't really put anybody in place that has been able to lift the team up from where it is now.

I would have expected Renault to make bigger strides than it has given the CFD and windtunnel facilities at its disposal, but from a chassis point of view it is still lacking, and you have to wonder whether the people just aren't as switched on as those at McLaren.

You'd certainly hope that the restructuring Renault has done since it bought the team back would be bearing fruit by now, and with a certain two-time world champion going there next year it will need to pull its socks up!

There was a huge amount of investment in equipment and extra CFD and bits for the windtunnel, but if you haven't got the right people who know how to use it and analyse it, that's money down the drain.

After another Mercedes walkover, can we expect Spa to shake up the order? Could that be Williams' best chance of points yet?

Martin Donovan, by email

I would have my doubts sadly. I'd like to hope that would be the case for Williams and maybe George Russell could lift it a little bit, but I don't really see it. Spa is one of those circuits where just about everybody seems to get some good momentum going, as long as you don't take off too much downforce.

The ban on qualifying modes is also likely to hurt Williams more than anybody else, given the advantage it derives from having a Mercedes power unit.

Williams has definitely made progress, and we've seen from Austria and Hungary, that it can get a good balance around those types of circuit, but it was very disappointing to see that it reverted back to square one at Barcelona again where it has already had the chance to test.

It also may be a heat thing, maybe it struggles a bit more than others to get the tyres to work in the extreme temperatures that we've seen in the last two or three weeks.

In the early rounds, Williams didn't have a handle on why it was performing so well in qualifying relative to races and admitted that it expected it to be the other way around. This suggests with the lighter fuel load it is easier to find the sweet spot to switch the tyres on than when the car is full of fuel. There are lots of ways in which you can change the car to help - or not help! - the tyres and obviously it just hasn't found that sweet spot yet.

A lot will depend on attrition, with the engines undergoing a lot of stress and of course, there's also the weather to consider too - but I don't see the order changing too much.

Why do you think the FIA hadn't banned qualifying modes before? Why the sudden decision in the middle of this season? Ferrari had an even bigger power advantage last year and they didn't ban qualifying modes then...

suvesh_misra, via Instagram

I think the FIA has just been slow on the uptake given Ferrari had the advantage on top-end power and outright qualifying pace last year. It certainly looks like it's trying to get everything a bit more levelled out and trying to introduce a BoP-type measure against Mercedes: maybe it has had Ferrari moaning in its ear saying, 'We can't compete with them this year'.

It's a difficult one. I do agree that it should be a level playing field and if other engine manufacturers don't have a particularly good qualifying mode for their engine, it's going to help them. But there's enough expertise out there that everybody should have some sort of "party mode" that they can use for qualifying.

PLUS: Why the end of "party mode" won't crash Mercedes' festivities

It was interesting to hear Lewis Hamilton say something to the effect that 'it won't make any difference to us'. You could call that bravado, but I'm sure Mercedes knows it can still use more power in the race than normal, which is an ominous thought indeed...

I have been dismayed by the ever-increasing size and weight of F1 cars. I realise that some of the weight has gone into safety measures, but surely with modern manufacturing a lot of that could be mitigated, so why do the regulations keep upping the minimum weight limit? If all the safety parameters stayed in place but the overall minimum weight was reduced, wouldn't this result in cars that are easier to race?

Guy Dormehl by email

Naturally, the lighter the car, the easier they are to drive. It's a source of constant puzzlement to me because obviously you want the cars to be as light as possible while remaining safe. They are ultimately very safe cars these days with the crash structures and halo in place.

I can't give you an answer on why they keep increasing the minimum weight, but it might even be something that Pirelli asks for because that suits its type of tyre. I can't think of any reason you'd want to make the cars heavier, other than the grounds of safety.

If F1 went completely spec like F2, how would teams spend their tech budgets and how much of a performance difference could they expect to make?

David Neilson, via Facebook

If things were limited, you'd use the resource to make the car as efficient as possible. If they were allowed to, I expect teams would look more into the windtunnel and CFD and get the right people in who know what they're talking about. It's hard to know how much performance could be extracted from a spec car with an F1-level budget, but good people can make all the difference in spec racing, just as in an F1 setting.

One of the teams in F2 that has impressed me this year is Hitech, which clearly shows this to be the case. As a new team to the series, it's managed to win two races so far, including a feature race at the first Silverstone round.

The new 18-inch wheels have definitely made for a much more level playing field for it to come into, but the team is evidently very well-organised. It's probably gone over the car with a fine tooth comb to find out all the areas it can improve, down to things like making sure the wheel bearings are as free as they can be.

Of course, for Hitech having an experienced driver in Luca Ghiotto is probably half the job as well. But for a team starting from scratch, it's about being organised from the word go.

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