Does Honda need a second team?

There's talk of Honda potentially supplying a second team in the future. Did it make a mistake going only with McLaren when it came in? Might it have progressed faster with two or three teams on the grid from the start of 2015, or is there a benefit in focusing on one team?
Darren Bates, via email

In the initial stages, there is a benefit from supplying only one team.

But once you have found your feet, got the right personnel in the right places and understand what the supply chain has to look like and service, then increasing the supply to two teams will give more input and more importantly a different viewpoint.

I think Honda would have done this for 2016 if it could have found someone to take the gamble. But McLaren stood in the way.

If you just look at the difference in performance between Sauber, Toro Rosso and Haas, all three with Ferrari deals, or between Williams, Force India and Manor, all three with Mercedes power units, it shows that supplying one team is a big gamble. It is very easy to get led down the garden path because you are dependent on the performance of a single team's design rather than having comparison points.

Nico Rosberg is ahead in the points, but most people seem to think Lewis Hamilton is a bit better and will come through to win the title. Would that feeling be reflected in the team and when you are actually on the inside, is it normal to believe one driver is stronger than the other even if there's not an official number one?
Henry Jones, via email

People's opinions are based on what has happened over the last couple of years. Rosberg appeared to fall apart as the championship progressed in 2014 in particular, but who's to say that will happen again this year?

Rosberg has had an early season warning shot when Hamilton came from some 43 points behind to take the championship lead, so now he has regained it he needs to make sure he doesn't let that happen again. In other words, he needs to up his game by that little bit every weekend.

Within the team, I am pretty sure they would love to see a German win the championship in a Mercedes. But I am also positive that, as a team, Mercedes wants the fastest driver to win so it will give each driver equal equipment and then let them slog it out on a Sunday afternoon.

In reality, there is no other team in contention for the constructors' championship or driver looking like taking the drivers' championship. So as long as the drivers keep it clean between themselves, the team will stand back and leave it up to them. But if Mercedes loses races because of driver stupidity then someone will have to step in and defuse the situation.

As far as a number one is concerned, the team will have a set-up and development direction it believes best suits the car. If one of the drivers is clever enough to buy into that and follow the team's direction, it usually means they will get listened to that little bit more than the driver who wants to try to go their own way.

Both Lewis and Nico will know this, so I am sure they will both toe the line.

We are always hearing about the next big technology that will transform various things, but there's not so much talk about this in F1. Are there any technologies, ideas, materials, approaches that you expect to have a big impact over the next 5-10 years or are the limits on regulations ruining that innovation?
Sarah Davies, via email

Sarah, I am sure there will be something coming along in the future but I think we should be very proud of what the engine manufacturers have managed to do in a very short time with the development of the power units.

These are very complicated pieces of kit and to get the level of power and the reliability out of them that Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda have done was no walk in the park.

With a bit of lateral thinking and cost cutting on how this technology has been achieved, it will definitely have a major impact on the road car market in the next decade.

However, you are right in saying that the regulations are strangling innovation. There was a time not so long ago where everyone, no matter what the cost, was chasing to find 'unobtanium'.

It did lead to the well-financed leaving the underdog behind; that is still happening, but to a slightly lesser degree.

If all top teams have a similar hydraulic third suspension element, what does Mercedes have that others don't?
Tyomas Vanhanen, via email

I think it's called innovation.

Mercedes is a team that, like Red Bull in the championship-winning years, really pushes the limits on everything. To get the success that these two teams have had in the last decade is not easy.

A racing car comprises many components and most teams have more or less the same amount of parts. But some teams just know how to get a little bit more out of some of these.

Mercedes has its hydraulic third suspension element for a reason and it is making sure that it is achieving its objective, which as we can see week in week out it is pretty good at doing.

We often hear commentators and team bosses state that certain drivers are outperforming their respective cars. Is there a way to quantify this? Are the team able to tell? What are the skills required in a driver to be able to achieve this feat?
Jay Menon, via email

Jay, I don't believe a driver can outperform a car. I believe a driver can underperform in a car and that is usually what you see when one driver is slower than his team-mate.

The current grid is more or less like Noah's Ark, the cars are very often two by two or if not very close to it. This is because the engineering and set-up is mainly done in the back of the garage.

Gone are the days when the driver used to come in and complain about the car's handling and then go into a discussion with their engineer about how to solve it.

Now it is all data driven and the engineers in the back of the garage (of which there are many) trail through the bucket loads of data they have to find out what is minutely out of position or moving too much or whatever and then advise the driver's engineer what needs to be done to rectify the situation.

I would like to see how a race weekend would unfold if all the performance data was withheld until the end of practice each day and just have the drivers and engineers coping hands on with what is thrown at them during a session.

At what approximate speed will an F1 car be relying purely on its mechanical grip versus its aerodynamic, regardless of how good the car is?
Paul Messenger, via email

Paul, any moving object travelling through the air will produce an aerodynamic force of some level, so you can never just say this is the switch point where mechanical and aerodynamic forces diverge.

Just for nice round figures, if we assume a current Formula 1 car produces 1000kg of aerodynamic load at 200km/h and that the downforce is linear - in other words it doesn't suffer any airflow separation with changing ride heights - we would get the following levels of downforce at these speeds.

50 km/h = 62kg
100 km/h = 250kg
150 km/h = 560kg
200 km/h = 1000kg
250 km/h = 1560kg
300 km/h = 2250kg

If you add these aerodynamic forces to the car weight, which is around 720kg, it gives you the total vertical load on the tyres. The lateral force going around a corner will just be the car weight, so if the tyre has a coefficient of one then you can see how the cars can generate 4g laterally in high-speed corners while only 1g plus in low-speed corners.

There is no magic mechanical grip switch on that very complicated steering wheel.

Why hasn't the radiator/engine cooling system design moved on over the years?
Ian Giles, via Facebook

Ian it has moved on and continually does. It's all about heat dissipation versus weight and an aluminium radiator core is pretty efficient at both these.

Over the years, the detail of the radiator cores has had lots of development. You can't see this, as it's internal. But small additions like internal vanes to create turbulence have helped dramatically with heat dissipation.

That, combined with being able to now have more advanced radiator shapes, has meant that the car's bodywork is now not compromised by a big rectangular radiator.

I had some involvement with an American company that was developing a carbon-graphite radiator that was going to solve all my problems. But when push came to shove it all faded away like so many of these great ideas, as to turn them into reality takes a bottomless pit of money.

I am sure there are some other materials out there that might just move radiator design on to a new level, but it needs to be cost effective as being the widest part of the car it is the first thing to get destroyed in an accident.

What difference is there between the best and the worst car in terms of grip in the corners - for example, what kind of difference would we see in apex speed from a Mercedes or a Red Bull compared to a Sauber or a Manor?
Ben Stuart, via email

Ben, I think my answer about mechanical grip versus aerodynamic grip really answers this question.

Downforce is the key to overall performance and the bigger teams just have more manpower and budget to achieve this. It is not just all about out and out downforce, balance is a major handling characteristic that dramatically effects lap time.

If you look at the good cars they are well balanced. If you look at the not-so-good cars (they are still very good) they normally have a mid-corner understeer that turns into a snappy oversteer on corner exit.

I would estimate that a good car might carry about 3-5% more corner apex speed than a not-so-good car.

Some circuits it will be more and some less but on average this is what equates to a 3-5% slower overall lap time.

Got a question for Gary Anderson? Send it to askgary@autosport.com, use #askgaryF1 on Twitter or look out for our posts on Facebook giving you the chance to have your question answered