Gary Anderson: Will Williams win?

How likely do you think it is that Williams will win a race before the end of the year?
Jake Jones, via Twitter

Anything is possible. Williams is running at the front, the car is reliable and the team has a spring in its step for the first time in many years. And both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa are very capable, so Williams is in a good position.

But Mercedes has really got its act together, so on top of everything I have said Williams will need a little bit of luck - or perhaps that should be bad luck for Mercedes.

Should F1 make Fridays a test day and build up a third car for test drivers? Then testing could be dispensed with altogether.

Paul English, via Twitter

Something needs to happen but the teams should be forced to run a young driver as opposed to just drivers who can afford to pay, so a fund needs to be created to allow this to happen.

My suggestion would be that the same format is kept for Friday and still with two cars. The two race drivers run in one session apiece, with a young driver in the second car in both sessions.

To fund this, the teams all contribute a percentage of their previous season's prize fund. You'd have to work out exactly how much needs to be raised to fund this, but let's say 10 per cent.

So if the cash pool comes to £55million, divide that equally between the 11 teams competing, so everyone gets £5million to run that young driver on Fridays. You would have to set some criteria, say a driver with no more than two grand prix starts and with an age restriction.

This way, this part of the prize fund is equalised and dedicated to finding the next Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton or whoever.

Are F1 tech regs too restrictive and is that why top designers are moving to new projects?
@jatx, via Twitter

The regulations are very restrictive but that also adds to the challenge. Winning has never been easy and the returns from the hours spent on research are tiny compared with what they used to be. So if someone starts the season strongly, it is very difficult to close them down.

That said, we need a turnover of all personnel involved to allow the door to be opened for others to progress.

From drivers to top engineers, Formula 1 is struggling to allow new people to get their feet in the door and there are some very clever and talented people not seen on the front line.

Why haven't we seen many innovative ideas this year in F1? Is it because teams have less money to experiment with?
Stefan Ruitenberg, via Twitter

It's not because of budget. I think the previous question answers this because the regulations are very restrictive.

The rules have been tightened up so much over the years to try to control performance and, in turn, budget, that innovation is limited to whether you have a three-, four-, five-, six- or seven-slot-gap front wing! It's all very important performance-wise but not exactly exciting visually.

Also, chassis-wise the regulations have been more or less the same since 2009 and any changes have just been more restrictive.

Does the FIA need to act to avoid more than half of the field having power unit grid penalties this season and what action could be taken?
@motor_racing_addict, via Twitter

Without doubt, penalties are going to affect the results before long. But I don't think anything can be done.

Some teams have managed the system better than others so they are never going to agree and to get the rules changed would require unanimity.

It is also a mixture of power unit components that are going to be prompting penalties for different teams, so no particular part is responsible. If it was one component prompting penalties then perhaps someone might step in and do something about it.

Which track was the most dangerous that you encountered in your career?
@MSCWillWin, via Twitter

I started in this sport in 1973, when every track was dangerous to some degree. It was quite common in those days to lose one, two or three drivers a season.

The reasons were many, but, in reality, it was mainly because there were no run-off areas worth mentioning. The crash barriers were just by the side of the track and not well enough engineered.

The changes since then have been enormous, and the FIA has done a great job in standardising the crash and tyre barriers. The introduction of vast areas of gravel traps and now surfaced run-off areas has also improved safety ten-fold.

Remember, if you are going to have an accident, it is the stopping that hurts, so you want to stop as slowly as possible.

The Peugeot engine was poor in the McLaren in 1994 and disastrous when it powered the Prost team from '98. But at Jordan from 1995-97, it proved competitive. Why?
Adam Jones, via email

You are correct in what you say, and to be honest over our three years with Peugeot it was hard work.

We had just had two years with a very neat little Hart V10 and I had a great personal relationship with Brian Hart. He was just a man who understood.

When I first visited Peugeot, they had 10 times the staff, and eight times the budget of Brian, so I thought it was going to be fantastic. But when we got the first engine and started testing for 1995, we had lots of problems that were carried over from 1994 when Peugeot was with McLaren.

The main one was Peugeot had a great engine on the dyno, but when in the car with altering lateral and longitudinal g-forces, it didn't work efficiently. It just filled up with oil - the air-valve system would get oil into the pistons and the engine would explode.

Peugeot focused on trying to fix the air-valve system but we pushed to alter the engine-oil system. After half a season it wasn't fixed, so at one of the races one of their engineers did a bit of plumbing work based on what we had suggested and, guess what, problem solved.

There was also a problem with the overhang of the flywheel from the rear main bearing; with a nice lightweight crankshaft, the clutch and flywheel would explode. It was this problem that led us to design the first system to mount the flywheel and clutch in the gearbox as opposed to being engine-mounted.

It was very hard work but during the next two years, Peugeot worked well with us and we believed in each other. The 1996 car was not great but I personally think the 1997 car was as good as we had ever built at Jordan.

I don't know what happened with Prost, but I know how hard I had to fight to get Peugeot to understand the issues with their engine.

At their peak, who was the better driver: Mika Hakkinen or Kimi Raikkonen?
Ravi Putcha, via Twitter

I really don't think I could choose between them.

I never worked with either of them in F1 but I did a Formula 3 test and race weekend with Mika at Brands Hatch and he just drove the car.

If you gave him something that makes the car go faster, he went faster. Take it off again and he went slower.

He was like clockwork, and from what I saw he was the same in F1. He worked hard and no matter what he was driving he just wanted to wring its neck.

Kimi is very talented and has great pace, but is a bit lazy about it all. If the car is good, he keeps something back and when he needs it he puts it on the table. This is very difficult for the engineers because you never know where you are.

That sort of attitude and the mix with Ferrari is a strange combination to try to build on, so I don't envy the job of the Ferrari engineers.

I think you can also see this from his rallying days, he never really knew where the limit was. He just kept trying to go faster until he crashed. In fact, Robert Kubica is not much different.