Chandhok answers F1 2019's big questions

Will Ferrari finally beat Mercedes this year?

There's no doubt that Ferrari had a car that was fast enough to win the world championship last year. Several driving errors and some mismanagement from the team cost Sebastian Vettel the title. Not getting Kimi Raikkonen to play the proper team game at Hockenheim or Monza was silly. Sacking Kimi on race day morning at Monza, when he could have helped Seb that day, was just bizarre.

As Vettel fell further and further away in the points and the car updates didn't deliver, the more desperate the overtaking lunges became and, in the end, the whole challenge unravelled. Frankly, you could even make a good argument for Ferrari having a car fast enough to win the title in 2017 if you only add the points lost in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan that year.

What's going to be interesting now is to see how it restructures with the well-respected Mattia Binotto in charge. Unquestionably, as a technical leader Binotto has done a good job to drag Ferrari from the mediocrity of 2014 into a team that has been a genuine championship contender now for the past two years.

But being the technical boss of a team is a 24/7 job, and being team principal is also a 24/7 job. With only 24 hours in a day, he will have to give up some of his technical responsibilities and therefore put in the right people to keep the momentum going.

There aren't really very many technical leaders of teams in F1. A quick scan of the dominant eras in the past 40 years tells you that the team principals are often fighting the political and commercial battles, but with a good technical mind as their partner in crime. Think of Frank Williams and Patrick Head, Ron Dennis and John Barnard, Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, Christian Horner and Adrian Newey, or Toto Wolff and Paddy Lowe or James Allison.

With a huge budget, great facilities, a fast car and good drivers, Ferrari is beginning to risk getting the reputation as being F1's underachiever, having not won a drivers' world championship now in 11 years (2007, above). F1 needs Ferrari to be winning and I hope that it can once again produce a car capable of taking the fight to Mercedes, so we get a great battle.

What impact will the new aero regulations have?

It has become increasingly clear that one of the biggest changes everyone wants to see from Formula 1 is for cars that can follow each other and race more closely.

I was never a fan of the 2017 rules. They seemed to be pushed into place because some quarters were saying that F1 had become too slow

As time has passed, the whole tone about the rule changes seems to have gone from 'it's going to make a significant improvement to overtaking' to be more about 'well, it may not make much of a difference but if we didn't do it, then things would be worse next year'.

While I understand that logic, it still begs the question of why it's being rushed through at a significant cost to the teams when there's a major rule change coming in 2021 anyway. Red Bull's Helmut Marko, for example, has talked about a €15million increase in the budget as a result of the new rules. The positive impact on overtaking seems quite small when compared to the cost.

Rather than being on the front foot and talking about how great the racing is going to be, Liberty and the FIA now seem to be on the defensive with these changes, talking about how it gives them direction for what to do in 2021, when we can expect some bigger changes. I hope that comes true and we do get some radical changes in two years' time.

I was never a fan of the 2017 rules. They seemed to be pushed into place because some quarters were saying that F1 had become too slow. Yes, the race pace in particular was (and still is) pretty slow, with drivers trundling around to a target pace, miles off their full potential and fearing degradation from the tyres. But this issue has come up because of the tyres - adding aero is just masking the issue.

More downforce and bigger tyres for 2017 meant that the lap times became significantly faster over one lap, but in reality the race pace really didn't improve as much, and the ability to follow other cars and overtake became much worse. Now, following someone in a third-gear corner became a pain - never mind a high-speed corner.

To quantify it, the average difference between pole position and the fastest lap of the winning driver (and therefore someone on a normal strategy, not chasing their fastest lap bonus money) in the last year of the Bridgestone tyres in 2010 was 3.06 seconds. In 2016, before the rule changes, it shot up to 5.2s, and in 2018 it was still 4.7s. So we didn't really have a huge gain in race pace and the effect on racing was a big negative with the faster cars.

Which drivers are under the most pressure this season?

I would say that Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas are the two drivers heading into 2019 under the most pressure.

Vettel's second half of the 2018 season really did a disservice to a driver of his calibre. He's a seriously talented four-time world champion who has had a wobbly period, a bit like 2014. He looked like a man who really needed to mentally take a break before coming back in 2019.

The Ferrari man is fully capable of bouncing back, of course, but I do think that he will benefit from stronger management - like he had at Red Bull with his engineer Guillaume Rocquelin, along with Helmut Marko and Christian Horner. He's no longer the golden child at Ferrari who arrived in 2015 to drag it back to world championship success, but he should have the tools to redeem himself after last year. A confident young Monegasque in the other car may create a new problem, but more on that later.

For Bottas, it's a much bigger challenge I think. At Mercedes he's up against the best driver of his generation, who seems to be getting mentally stronger with every year that goes by. It must hurt when every time he thinks, 'Lewis is off getting distracted on a fashion ramp somewhere while I'm pounding the streets of Monaco training for the next race', he then gets outqualified at the next race.

Throw in the bad luck he had in 2018 and you really have to feel for Bottas. He should have won three races last year (arguably Bahrain too) and actually would have been ahead of Hamilton in the championship early on in the season if he'd had the rub of the green. But in the end, looking at a table where your team-mate has won 11 times and the world title, while you're fifth in the points can't be much fun. The Esteban Ocon factor is going to be hard for Valtteri too. As a reserve, Ocon will be very quick to keep pointing out why he deserves that top Mercedes seat for 2020.

Bottas needs to hit the ground running in Melbourne and show that he can be the 'alternative winner' to Lewis on a day when the five-time champion ace has an issue. Mercedes doesn't need him to be a rival to Hamilton in a way that Nico Rosberg was, but equally it does need someone who will be there right behind his team leader.

Could Red Bull-Honda challenge the top two?

This, for me, is the biggest and most important question for 2019. On the odd occasion last year where the power sensitivity was low, Red Bull showed that it had lost none of its ability to produce a quick car. I would even argue that Max Verstappen's win in Mexico was one of the most dominant drives of the season.

For everyone watching, having three teams in the fight for the world championship is exactly what we want

For everyone watching, having three teams in the fight for the world championship is exactly what we want. When it's only two, they just tend to cover each other off in terms of strategy and, on the occasional weekend where one has a weakness, the other one romps off into the distance. Think back to Brazil, where we genuinely had all the top six contenders battling it out and it was brilliant.

Speaking privately to people at Red Bull and Honda, they're very optimistic. Toro Rosso will have a closer alliance to the big team now, and to have four cars running collaboratively will be of huge benefit to Honda.

As far back as Sochi last September, I was told that in their early simulation work together they had already found more beneficial ways of using the ERS deployment and recovery than the strategies that were put in place during the McLaren-Honda era just gone.

Despite having a less competitive package, Verstappen outscored both Ferrari drivers in the second half of last season and started to discover a level of maturity that he needs to be a team leader. He comprehensively outperformed Daniel Ricciardo from Canada onwards, and races such as Singapore and Mexico underlined that he is going to be a title contender if the car is capable of it. Red Bull showed in races like the Chinese GP that it is still operationally very sharp and strategically excellent, so if Honda can carry on the steps forward that we saw with the 'Version 3' engine, then it could be game on for RBR.

Will McLaren sink or swim without Alonso?

When you look at the qualifying averages across last season, McLaren had the ninth fastest car, yet finished sixth in the world championship. The mercurial Fernando Alonso was as brilliant as always, with a 21-0 clean sweep over Stoffel Vandoorne in qualifying and scoring more than four times the number of points that Vandoorne did. So unquestionably the team will miss having him as the reference.

I'll admit to being a bit biased towards Carlos Sainz Jr because I think that he's a very good driver who was unfortunate with his timing not to get the Red Bull graduation he deserved. But he goes to McLaren as a very young team leader who hasn't yet scored an F1 podium, alongside Lando Norris - another very good talent without a proven F1 record. Having two hungry and motivated drivers is good for the team; not having continuity and a reference isn't.

McLaren of course is one of F1's great teams and, much like with Ferrari and Williams, I think it's good for the championship for the squad to be at the sharp end. There was very little sympathy for its struggles last year, largely because McLaren seemed to lack humility in the tough Honda years, often claiming to have one of the best chassis on the grid.

Using the same engine as the works Renault and Red Bull teams left McLaren with nowhere to hide, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the humility had kicked in, and that Jonathan Neale and Zak Brown were prepared to put their hands up and admit that the team hadn't done a good enough job with the car. Throw in some very odd tyre choices at a couple of the late-season races and the whole season seemed messy.

McLaren shifted its focus early to 2019 and has also been proactive to try to restructure behind the scenes. Tim Goss left after 28 years with the team, as well as Matt Morris, with former McLaren and Ferrari man Pat Fry making a return, along with James Key who has yet to actually arrive. The team has recently recruited Andreas Seidl from Porsche, and he comes with a very good reputation.

The problem with modern F1 is that with the lead times involved in designing a car, effecting change isn't something that happens instantaneously. McLaren will be looking to rebuild and re-establish itself in the midfield with regular Q3 appearances, and finishing at least as an equal to the works Renault squad.

Will Leclerc repay Ferrari's faith in him?

Charles Leclerc is absolutely the real deal. I first met him when he was racing in Formula 3, and already he had this air of someone who knew that they were good but without a hint of arrogance. I do hope that Ferrari allows him to continue being that open, friendly, down-to-earth person rather than turning him into a prima donna.

I was very impressed with how he turned his season around after a shaky start. It takes a lot of mental strength for a young rookie to deal with three disappointing races at the start of their F1 career and turn it around into a brilliant run of qualifyings and races to establish themselves as one of the stars of the future.

Until Raikkonen's retirement in Abu Dhabi, it looked like Vettel was going to be outscored by the Sauber-bound Finn in the second half of the season. That probably led to Ferrari believing that it needed to get Leclerc in there as an understudy, so he can be groomed to be the team leader in the near future. He's already very well-liked and respected by the Maranello squad and is very much a part of the furniture there. I do believe that he's going to be a real thorn in Vettel's side. When Red Bull recruited a young hotshot in 2014 (Ricciardo) it didn't work out well for Sebastian, and watching how their dynamic plays out will be fascinating.

Which rookie will make the biggest impression?

I really rate all four of the rookies coming in this year. All of them have done a very good job in the junior formulas and deserve their place on the grid. I don't personally know Lando Norris and Antonio Giovinazzi very well, but both George Russell and Alex Albon are very level-headed guys who have their feet firmly planted on the ground.

Their objectives and the impressions they want to leave are all a bit different I think. George is trying to put himself on the Mercedes map and leapfrog Esteban Ocon in the queue; Alex is trying to establish himself as a driver who genuinely deserves an F1 seat and isn't there only because Red Bull had nobody else; Lando seems to be committed to McLaren for the long term and therefore he's there to learn and help the team rebuild; while Giovinazzi wants to make himself the first reserve for the day when Vettel finally leaves Ferrari. Mick Schumacher being signed to the Ferrari driver programme will certainly ramp up the pressure on Giovinazzi.

Rookies in F1 will always be judged against their team-mates. For George and Alex, that judgement will be slightly tricky to make because they're up against drivers (Robert Kubica and Daniil Kvyat) who are returning after a sabbatical and are therefore slight unknowns themselves. For Lando and Antonio, they will have very good references with Sainz and Raikkonen, and therefore we should be able to see just how good they are.

Can Ricciardo and Renault spring a surprise?

It depends on what you consider a surprise, I guess! I think it would be a tall order for Ricciardo and Renault to beat Red Bull this year, unless Honda takes a step backwards. On average last season, Red Bull was 0.65% off pole position, while Renault was 2.05% away, which is a not-insignificant margin.

If Renault is going to become a championship contender again, then it needs to make massive strides forward both with the chassis and power unit

As the relationship between Red Bull and Renault fell apart, both Christian Horner and Helmut Marko took pleasure in pointing out that Verstappen lapped the Renaults twice in Mexico, publicly highlighting what the gap was between the teams. I have no doubt that this point was tossed in Daniel's direction in a half-joking way!

If Renault can halve the deficit to Red Bull and move clear of the other midfield teams to be a firm fourth best, and sneak in a couple of podiums, then that would be a good step forward, I think. At the end of the day, it's a manufacturer team and therefore should be ahead of the independents or 'B teams'. Renault has been on a big recruitment drive through 2016 and '17, and this year's car should start to show the results of that expanded factory on the chassis side.

On the power unit front, it's become very complicated to make exact numerical comparisons like in the old days, because you now have the internal combustion engine and the electric power to consider, but the gossip among paddock sages was that the Renault was overtaken by the 'Version 3' Honda introduced in Japan. Red Bull would be the only team able to answer that question with the data from Toro Rosso and the big team, but obviously it's going to be a bit biased!

If Renault is going to become a championship contender again, then it needs to make massive strides forward both with the chassis and power unit. It's nice to see a driver take a risk with his career and spice up the driver market, which is what Daniel has done. Now the team has to reward his risk-taking with some good steps forward.

Could the chasm between the big teams and the midfield get smaller?

Rule changes do offer an opportunity to mix things up, but they also mean that the big teams can throw more resources at it and move ahead. The 2017 rule changes certainly created a very clear gap between the top three and the rest and, while the '19 changes are smaller, they still won't help that problem.

I guess the only one who could and should close the gap to the top three is potentially Renault for all the reasons mentioned above.

The only way this gap is going to really get smaller is if the technical rules are simplified so that, for example, the difference between spending €80million or €10m on aero is a few tenths rather than a few seconds. Yes, that will stem the creativity of people like Adrian Newey and could cost jobs, but eventually it will become a self-policing budget cap because even the richest teams will one day say, 'Why are we spending all this money for not much gain in performance?' That may then encourage new teams into F1, and therefore a place for people from the existing teams whose jobs are sacrificed there.

Will Kubica show Williams was right?

I would dearly love for Robert Kubica to come back with a bang. To say he was nearly killed in that rally crash is not an exaggeration, and to see him back racing in F1 is a brilliant human story.

In his first F1 career Robert was unquestionably one of the brightest talents around in an era of very bright talents. He pushes the team very hard with some brutally honest truths, which can sometimes be uncomfortable, but it's motivated by a feeling of wanting to be constructively critical. Williams and George Russell will benefit from his experience and hard work.

In terms of his speed and ability in the cockpit, only he can truly answer whether his physical limitations are costing him performance and if so, how much. It's true that at the tests at the end of 2017, he wasn't able to unlock the one-lap peak performance that he wanted to, but a year later he's had a bit more mileage in the car as well as plenty of simulator time, so should be more prepared.

Robert wants to be judged as a racing driver, the same as the other 19 on the grid, and not as someone with physical limitations. Ultimately, the stopwatch never lies, and when we get to qualifying in Melbourne we'll know just where he sits.