How would qualifying races change F1?

What do you think of the proposal to have some short, reversed-grid Saturday races next season - and how difficult would this be for teams to take on?

Martin Smith, via email

I think it's a great idea and if it was down to me that's what qualifying would be replaced with - a short, reversed-championship-grid race on a Saturday afternoon to set the grid for the feature race on the Sunday. I have written about it many times and while, yes, it will change the DNA of F1, in reality that has been changed on many occasions and F1 itself still survives.

We want to see action-packed races - what better way is there to achieve it? George Russell on pole and Hamilton 20th on the grid is something I would watch and I think a lot of others would as well.

All joking aside, it would force the teams to design cars that are better in traffic and that cooled better, but doing it for just a few races won't do anyone any favours. You will need to arrive at the circuit with two aerodynamic specifications, one for the Saturday sprint reversed-grid race and one for the main event.

Also, currently the cars go into parc ferme at the start of qualifying, so if that happens at the start of the Saturday sprint race then set-up changes will not be allowed. They also need to consider accident damage, so there will be more of this and perhaps some teams will not have enough sets of the same specification parts to replace them.

I am all for it and I think it will make for great racing. But - and it's a big but - F1 and the FIA would need to make sure they cover all the potential problems otherwise it could turn into a bit of a farce and get dumped before it has time to show its true potential.

What happens in a team when there is a shift of the lead driver, as there seems to be at Ferrari? Have you ever been in a team where this happened, and how does a team respond when a young driver comes in and outperforms the more established name?

Javier Lopez, via email

Any team will always follow the driver that's bringing it the results. Sebastian Vettel may have been number one at Ferrari, but he has dropped the ball too often. Even when Ferrari has a good weekend, he still seems to make mistakes.

He's still a very quick driver, but to get the best out of his ability he seems to need a car that suits his driving style. Charles Leclerc, not really having that much experience, just drives what he has and adapts.

Vettel really was on top of the exhaust-blown aerodynamic systems that Red Bull created during his time there, but when things didn't work he was all at sea. That was further emphasised when the regulations changed in 2014. The current central exhaust outlet and regulated diameter means any potential for exhaust blowing is minute.

From what I see, I'm not sure he will recover from the situation he has got himself into. Leclerc is only going to get stronger as he builds more experience and the team will also start to follow his development direction more and more. That will serve to give Leclerc even more confidence.

I have never really been in a team where there was a true number-one driver. Both drivers were, if possible, given the same treatment and opportunities, and from there on in it was down to them to earn their place. Some did it well, others not so well. But usually, as they say, the cream rises to the top.

How much front to rear weight percentage are teams allowed to move, or able to move, to assist handling during a Formula 1 weekend?

@DriverConnexion, via Twitter

The teams have very little adjustment available to them. Below are the regulations as they are written, so as you can see it's more or less defined at 45.5% to 46.5% front and 53.5% to 54.5% rear.

4.1 Minimum weight
The weight of the car, without fuel, must not be less than 743kg at all times during the Event. If, when required for checking, a car is not already fitted with dry weather tyres, it will be weighed on a set of dry weather tyres selected by the FIA technical delegate.

4.2 Weight distribution
The weight applied on the front and rear wheels must not be less than the weight specified in Article 4.1 factored by 0.455 and 0.535 respectively at all times during the qualifying practice session. Rounding will be to nearest 0.5kg. If, when required for checking, a car is not already fitted with dry weather tyres, it will be weighed on a set of dry weather tyres selected by the FIA technical delegate.

This was originally introduced for the 2011 season to stop those involved in tyre testing gaining an advantage, and also to stop a team lucking in to the right weight distribution and having a big advantage. Prior to that, weight distribution was free.

The teams will have an amount of ballast they can move around underneath the car and then as a tool at the circuit they have a small amount in the front wing main plane. If you look at the front wing's top surface between the mounting pillars on most cars you will see a rectangular cover about 12cm x 6cm.

Inside this, a block of ballast can be fitted that could be from nothing to somewhere in the region of 4kg. This is low down and well forward, so has a reasonable effect on the weight distribution.

Do you think F1 should take a more scientific 'BoP-esque' approach to fine-tuning DRS zones? To make overtaking challenging, e.g. Monza good, Spa way too easy.

Jay Ell, via Twitter

If I had my way, the DRS would be long gone. It is artificial and reduces the driver's ability to pull off an overtake in its own right. If you look at the younger drivers - well, some of them are not so young now - they just get on with it when the opportunity arises.

If we take Monza, where you say the balance of the DRS was good, neither Mercedes driver managed to pass a Ferrari. But if it had been two Ferraris battling, or two Mercedes, it would probably have looked fairly easy because they would have the same engine performance. If the FIA was to put more effort into managing the DRS zones, it would have to decide which cars and power units to use as the reference and all will vary.

Also, the faster or more aerodynamically-developed cars lose more overall - particularly front grip - when following another car. This is because the aerodynamic surfaces are working closer to their ultimate potential so are less robust in turbulence.

This was Leclerc's saviour at Monza. He focused on the exit of the Parabolica and knew that if he didn't make any mistakes and got on the throttle early and cleanly, then both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas would have too much understeer on corner exit. This allowed him to open enough of a gap to fend off the DRS attack on the straight.

Given that low drag concept of Ferrari and its front wing shape, do you think any downforce and front load gains can founded in the same concept somehow, or does it have to completely change its aerodynamic and chassis philosophy for next year given that similar or identical front wings are being run by McLaren and now even by Red Bull? Can Ferrari keep the same concept but find some new solutions to generate more downforce on next year's car?

Gurminder Singh, via Facebook

I think Ferrari can keep a similar concept. As I've said before, I'm pretty sure there is a halfway point somewhere in the front wing design. Mercedes and Red Bull are heading in Ferrari's direction, so perhaps Ferrari needs to head in the Mercedes direction, just a little, so they all meet in the middle with the right compromise.

It's not so much the front wing design that matters, it's what happens further downstream that slows up the development direction and, in turn, the manufacture of the replacement parts. By increasing the workload of the outer section of the front wing, you will fairly dramatically change how the airflow is managed around the contact patch of the front tyre and how the airflow is managed with differing steering lock.

This is critical to the bargeboard lower section and the leading edge of the floor, so a lot of research will be required before a solution is found. But it's the same for everyone and this is why teams put a lot of effort into their concepts hoping it's just that little bit different to the others - meaning that others just can't copy so easily.

For Ferrari, this philosophy has worked out as a slight negative compared to Mercedes, but we need to remember it has now won two races and should have, could have, but didn't, win another three. If that had happened, the season would look very different.

Bearing in mind the scenes in Q3 at Monza, and Spa to an extent, is the effect of the tow likely to be more or less of a benefit with the 2021 cars due to the differing wake pattern?

James Frankland, via Instagram

A tow will always be important. Anything that moves through the air will always benefit from something else in front of it making a hole.

The current cars are high-downforce with wide rear tyres and that's what creates the wake. If a car is as aerodynamically efficient as the Ferrari is, then it has a reduced wake. If a car is not so efficient and produces extra downforce, as the Mercedes does, then it will have a bigger wake. This means it will be easier to get a tow from a Mercedes than a Ferrari.

As for the other teams, it's a mixed bag of downforce and hence drag levels and, in turn, the effect of the wake.

For 2021, the plan is to reduce the overall downforce and with that the amount of turbulence created by the leading car. This, in turn, should reduce the size of the wake.

However the big rear tyres are still there. Yes, they will probably have some aerodynamic vanes that will reduce the turbulence, but they will still create a sizeable wake or hole in the air, which will help the following car.

But the aerodynamic concept for the 2021 regulations is to create a car that will lose less downforce when following another car. If that comes to pass, a tow will be of more value at more circuits. Currently, there are only a couple that you can benefit at because you generally lose too much downforce, but if the regulators come up with what they say they have, then more circuits will offer better lap times from a tow.

So, to answer your question simply, I think it will be more important in 2021.

How do the F1 engines control the idle system?

asmslh1, via Instagram

The idle is controlled as with a road car at a set rpm. But the main difference is that teams want to control the temperature rise and fuel consumption so they only fire random cylinders.

Every engine manufacturer will have its own way of controlling it, and it depends on the firing order of the actual engine itself. So, if the normal firing order is 1-3-5-2-4-6, then at idle they might fire 1-5-4-3-2-6-1-5-4-3-2-6 and so on. It's basically missing out every other cylinder and the pattern will change so no cylinder is left unfired for too many engine rotations.

This is why some engines - especially the Honda - sound so rough at idle or on overrun where they can also do the same. It's also why cars can sit at the end of the pitlane or on the grid without boiling.

Looking at Renault at the Belgian Grand Prix, how can a team with such massive investment keep its star and highly paid driver (Daniel Ricciardo) out so long on a set of tyres? From lap 36, Ricciardo's C2 medium tyres had died as he lost five seconds a lap and went from P7 to P14 in the last stretch. Renault seems to try to go long on tyres at various races. Is this to fit with their recent upgrades or is this a genuine gambling strategy to beat McLaren?

Dominique Vanhamme, via email

No decision means that you don't make the wrong decision, and sometimes when the pressure starts to build up within the management, that's the best way to not get the blame when it all goes wrong.

Trying to go long because you might just be able to make use of a safety car is one thing, but at some point in time if that doesn't happen you have to bite the bullet and pit. As you say, Renault lost a lot of time and all the indications from Pirelli were that the tyres he had on at that point just wouldn't perform for that many laps.

On fresh tyres, he would have been in reasonable shape to race with the others that would have been on older tyres by then. As it was, he was just a sitting duck.

McLaren does race strategy pretty well, so I don't see any reason to think that Renault could outfox it by doing something as simple as trying to do more or less a full race distance on one set of tyres. If it was possible, everyone would be attempting it.

Racing on a Sunday afternoon is all about battling teams that you are fighting with in the championship. There is no need for Renault to try to out-think Mercedes or Ferrari, the main competition is at the head of that midfield so those are the teams Renault needs to study and react against. It doesn't seem to do that too often.

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