What is Ferrari doing wrong in 2016?

What goes wrong with Ferrari and its tyres in qualifying, particularly in Q3?
Joey Saad, via Twitter

Tyres are a bit of a black art and no two people will agree on how to get the best out of them. So I can only give you my opinion.

Back in 1991, when we built our first car at Jordan, we accepted that two things were basically out of our control. One was the engine and the other was the tyres, which were supplied by Goodyear at that time.

We decided that to make sure we got the best from whatever engine we had, we needed to make sure that the car's traction was as good as we could make it. With the tyres, it was about how to get them into their best operating window.

To achieve that, we got a set of tyre blankets made that allowed us to heat the tyre tread and sidewall independently and embarked on a test session to see what the best solution was.

Unsurprisingly to me now, heating the tread to anything above 80C appeared to give less grip, so we ended up with 100C sidewall heating temperature and 60C tread heating temperature.

We used these for years with Goodyear, Bridgestone and Michelin tyres, so a wide selection of manufacturers. The system was later copied in some form or another by most of the other teams.

From what I hear, most teams struggle to get the tyres switched on and usually blame tyre temperature for this. So the first thing they do is to turn up the blankets.

The problem with that is it hardens the compound. Although the driver feels the tyre has better grip on the first lap, they actually have less overall grip available as they are, in effect, running a harder compound.

When you say that Ferrari has more problems in Q3, I would not be surprised if it was just because the tyres have been in the blankets cooking for longer - so are effectively harder.

Timing when the tyres are going to be used on the track and when they are switched on in the blankets is vitally important. In there too long and the grip will be reduced, in there too briefly and the temperature will not be stable.

Tyres are like a new pair of leather shoes. When you first try them they feel a little tight, but after you have worn them a short time they loosen up. Tyres do this after a little bit of loading and when they are loosened up they become more compliant and offer more consistent grip.

Should F1 shift to prioritise the drivers' championship over the constructors' championship?
Lizza Angelis, via Twitter

Lizza, no I don't think so. In a big team there are two drivers and around one thousand staff. Winning the constructors' championship is for all of those people.

If as a team you can win that championship, then it is down to the individual driver to show he is the man for the drivers' championship.

I'm surprised F1 hasn't done a big publicity campaign to talk up the incredible efficiency gains with the current hybrid engines - what a wasted chance to talk up F1 and attract governments/fans/sponsors. Why are the powers that be criticising it?
Rafael Perez, via email

Rafael, I completely agree. To that end, the FIA once asked me to make sure that I talked up the engine rules. My answer to this was that they needed to talk it up for themselves.

If I was involved, the first thing I would do would be to use an electric Mercedes (which exists) as the safety and medical cars rather than these big V8 gas-guzzling machines that they currently use.

They really should have made a big thing of it, but the battle between the FIA and FOM over who is really in charge of F1 advertising boils away under the surface and gets in the way.

Bernie Ecclestone likes column inches and the best guarantee of getting that is to say things that people don't expect you to say. Also, he likes to throw a curveball to see who reacts to it, then he knows who he is dealing with.

If you always toe the line, then it will not make the daily papers.

We know teams spend a lot of time analysing driver performance, but what does this actually involve? I've heard people talk about analysing time lost passing yellow flags, which shows the kind of detail. How did you go about this in your time, and how have things evolved in F1 since then?
Darren Stevens, via email

Things have evolved at an unbelievable rate since my day. Now, you would have a group of people looking at every minute detail of every driver of every race to see where someone was able to make up a couple of tenths of a second on a rival.

Things that we would look at were drivers' (and cars') performance in the race compared to the qualifying lap. To do this you needed to take into account fuel loads, which you could do because it was at the time of fuel stops, and tyre compounds so only really a couple of fudges.

When we compared Michael Schumacher's race laps against any of our drivers or indeed most other drivers on the grid, his race laps were closer to his qualifying lap performance than anyone else.

The other thing we compared was in and out laps for pitstops. It is amazing how much time can be lost during these two laps, a lot of drivers would treat them like normal practice in and out laps.

But the ones that really knew why they were driving that car on a Sunday afternoon would actually be able to find a couple of tenths of a second, knowing that set of tyres was going to be replaced for a fresh set.

The current teams will look at all the same things but in finer detail. Why? Because they might find something and they have the manpower to do it.

Are the costly 2017 regulation changes to make cars faster necessary, bearing in mind this year's cars are now breaking lap records?
Phil McWilliam, via Twitter

I believe the 2017 regulations are going in very much the wrong direction.

Firstly, they are going to cost teams a lot of money at a time when we know one or two are struggling to make ends meet.

Secondly, the focus of the change of regulations for 2017 is about faster cars when it should be all about more robust aerodynamics that would allow drivers to follow and pass another car.

Barcelona and Monaco are very different circuits, but if you watched the races you will have seen exactly the same problem. Actually, all the circuits are effectively the same other than when DRS (which I am not a fan of) is too powerful. If I wanted to watch this type of overtaking, I could go and sit on the side of the M1.

In Spain, Kimi Raikkonen chased down Max Verstappen but could do nothing when he got there. Daniel Ricciardo chased down Sebastian Vettel but again could do nothing when he got there (although he came close).

In Monaco, it was Ricciardo chasing down Lewis Hamilton but again, even on the intermediate tyres, which at that time in the race was easily the fastest tyre - by seconds against Hamilton's wets - he could do nothing.

Currently, from qualifying to race laptime there is about a five to six second drop-off. We don't pick this up visually. All we want to see is two, three or four cars having a battle and with each driver having a car that will allow them to show his real talent and have a go at overtaking.

So, reduce overall downforce by 50%, by:
1 Reduced front wing complexity, max three elements.
2 Reduced or removed widgets around the leading edge of the side pods and various other places
3 Single-element rear wing

To go with this:
1 Improved underbody downforce
2 Bigger tyres (well, at least they have got something right for 2017)

In motocross, tear-offs are a must-have. Most riders nowadays use a roll-off system. I can't understand why the FIA doesn't enforce a system like that. Aerodynamics may play a role, but when teams spend millions on CFD and windtunnels, then surely they can fix that?
Joris Welles, via email

It's a very good point. There is a motocross track about half-a-mile from my house, which is used most Sundays and I didn't know that they used a system like that. I am sure I am not the only one.

First of all, I have a couple of questions on the mentality of the people that create and implement these regulations:

1 If you were going to ban throwing tear offs out of the cockpit would you do it for Monaco - the highest driver concentration track on the calendar?
2 Wouldn't you first limit the amount of tear offs that a driver could use/throw out? That way you would force the teams to find a solution.

You are correct to say that the teams would find a way to use a system like you suggest.

Over time we have seen lots of different approaches to airboxes in F1. I understand the basic principle is that this is an air intake, and the amount of air you can get into an engine plays a big part in its effectiveness but why do we see so many different shapes over time?
David Smith, via email

The airbox intake shape is a bit of a trademark stamp for each team. The actual shape is not too critical but the opening size was during the normally-aspirated days.

It is much less critical now with the turbo. You can tell this because most teams are also using it as a cooling duct for one thing or another.

I am a fan of what we used on the 1997 Jordan. We spent a fair amount of time on this area and the airbox design itself with Peugeot and we were both surprised by how much horsepower we recouped compared to the '96 design.

What you see outside is all about getting good airflow around the inlet and down the sides of the engine cover to improve the performance of the rear wing. Actually, the one I would currently pick out as having room for development is what Mercedes is using. Shows what I know...

From your experience in A1GP, what are the key lessons Formula E must learn to ensure it grows into a legitimate racing series and not end up as something that burned bright but died young?
Scott Turner, via email

The biggest thing to keep under control is the budgets. A1GP was in a dreamland thinking about taking on F1 and ran away with itself by introducing new cars and new engines at a time when all it needed was a facelift on the Lola it was using.

The teams just couldn't afford it and the subsidies from the organisers just got later and later until they stopped coming altogether. End of story.

Formula E needs to be careful it doesn't go the same route. Its biggest asset is the manufacturers that are involved. So the organisers need to work on this to get more and to give each of them their own identity and not just be there on a badging exercise.

Season three will be a big challenge.

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