AUTOSPORT's technical expert GARY ANDERSON answers your questions, including whether McLaren-Honda can challenge Mercedes, who was 2014's biggest improver and the mistakes he made in his career
Do you think McLaren will be able to match Mercedes? The Honda engine is unknown, and McLaren produced mediocre chassis recently, so there's doubt...
@eggry, via Twitter
No is the simple answer to that. Or, at least, I will be very, very surprised if they do.
Comparing the 2014 McLaren against the Mercedes chassis, I believe what we have seen over the last few years is McLaren suffering from a lack of direction as to what makes a racing car go fast.
It is not just about maximising downforce, it is about producing a car that is adequate in all areas. But most importantly, it needs to be driver-friendly to give confidence.
The driver will bring you a bigger improvement in lap time if they have confidence in the equipment around them than you will get from another 10 kilos of peaky downforce.
Mercedes has been assembling the building blocks for a few years and now it is about maximising the output of all of those people.
We always talk about Aldo Costa, Geoff Willis, Paddy Lowe etc joining the team but it is the other people that were there before them that have really bought into the situation and upped their game. People like John Owen, a really clever guy, who stays under the radar and gets on with it.
As for the engine, I believe that unless Bernie Ecclestone gets his way and we go back to those very noisy simple V8s revving to 18,000rpm, Mercedes will have the upper hand for another couple of years.
What Andy Cowell and everyone involved in the engine project at Brixworth built for 2014 is very impressive. Even more impressive is that they really do know why it is good and if the engine homologation rules are relaxed they have a plan to make it even better.
Honda will take a while to get into its stride. It has a habit of laying down a long-term plan and if that is in the right direction then it will be a force. If the plan is going the wrong way then it will be difficult to change that direction.
We won't know where Honda is until testing gets under way and after that I will be able to give a better judgement.
One other thing to remember: the Mercedes chassis and engine might be paid for by Mercedes but both are designed and built in good old Blighty...
Which driver do you think has improved the most over the year?
James Eddolls, via Twitter
James, driver improvement is something that is very difficult to quantify. From my point of view, it is not just about being able to drive fast. It is more about drivers coming to grips with the situation around them and improving it.
Looking at it that way, an experienced driver can improve just as much as a new kid on the block.
So, given that, I would have to give it to Jenson Button. Can you imagine what an experienced driver and past world champion goes through mentally when he starts a new season and the tools he is given by the team just aren't good enough?
On top of that he had a very quick rookie team-mate in Kevin Magnussen who knows nothing else but to drive the wheels off the car. And because he is doing that the team gets behind him.
Jenson proved himself to be a workhorse during 2014 and at the end of the season when his drive was in doubt he kept his head and brought McLaren some very valuable points.
In fact, he was the opposite of what we saw from Fernando Alonso. Once it was all over for him at Ferrari he fell away.
I don't blame him for this but as a professional driver you need to put in 100 per cent every time you sit in the car. He didn't, but Jenson did.
Do you see Williams as capable of being serious title contenders in 2015 and how do they do it?
@TheFinalCountUp, via Twitter
In 2014 Williams climbed back up the ladder to where it should have been for a long time. The team has a very good group of people in place and Claire Williams does a fantastic job of letting people get on with what they are good at.
Some other team principals could learn a lot from how she goes about her business.
But it will be difficult for Williams to take the next step. In 2014, Red Bull and Renault tripped up and as for Ferrari, well I suppose it was similar to Red Bull. Ferrari wasn't really where it should be.
But we never know what we will get from Ferrari. If these two teams/engine builders get their act together then the competition at the front will become even tougher, making it more difficult for Williams.
That said, you have got to be in it to win it and Williams is certainly back so let battle commence.
What's the biggest mistake you made in your long career in motorsport?
Sarah Bates, via email
Sarah, I'm not sure there is enough space for me to list my mistakes! There were many during my 42 years. I started as a mechanic and I suppose you could say I 'progressed' to being a technical director. So I will look at my time in the technical director position.
As for my biggest mistake, I would have to say it was not joining a big team when I had the offers and the motivation to succeed. I never did this because I always felt there was more satisfaction in the underdog getting it right and kicking the big boys in the goolies.
A racing car is made up from many individual components. The sum of these is what gives it its performance and I am someone who needs to be involved in all of this.
I like to get my hands dirty and need to have the gut feel of how everything will work together.
If I had joined a big team, my job would have been sitting at a desk shuffling paperwork around. At the time I needed that like a hole in the head.
If I was a few years younger and the offer came around again I would take it but only with the understanding that I would set up the operation very similar to how Red Bull works.
Adrian Newey and I are very similar; he needs to be directly involved day to day, he has people around him that shuffle the paper work allowing him to get his hands dirty and to feel what he is creating.
If you could choose any two current drivers to put in your line-up, Gary, who would you take for 2015? And would it be two established stars or a top liner and one for the future?
Mitch Connor, via Facebook
Mitch, this for me is very easy to answer. It would be exactly what Red Bull has: Daniel Riccardo and Daniel Kyvat are stars of the future.
Riccardo took on four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and thrashed him. As Christian Horner says, it was Riccardo's speed that finally made Vettel decide to go to Ferrari.
As for Kyvat, in his rookie year he did a great job. It is always difficult to judge a driver when he is with a smaller team as they are never quite as consistent as the big teams.
But if Kvyat wasn't part of Q3 on Saturday afternoons he was always knocking on the door. And remember Toro Rosso was also using the Renault engine, and on some occasions it was the top Renault-engined team.
They are going to have some great battles, they are both full of confidence and neither of them will give an inch. Hopefully Renault will improve its engine enough to allow those battles to be right at the front.
Given the different climates in different countries, could we have racing over the winter months and start the season earlier, finish later but only have a race every two or three weeks?
David Williams, via Facebook
David, there is no reason why not. I am old enough to remember when the first race in Argentina was the first weekend of January and the last race was at Watkins Glen in America in late October. There were normally only 16 or 17 races in those days so you did get the odd break but to counter that we drove to all of the European races, so that added a couple of days at least to each weekend.
If we are going to have in excess of 20 races in a season then they need to be spread out. Some of them are more cost-efficient as double headers because they are in the same part of the world but this is a small saving. Last year Australia and Malaysia were separated but no one made much noise about it.
Everyone that works on the race team has a family life so being on the road constantly is no easy thing. I have been married for 37 of my 42 years in this sport and I have to give thanks to my wife Jennie for putting up with me and making sure my washing was ready for the next trip.
These are the sort of things that would need sorting but it is not impossible.
Starting on the first weekend of March and ending on the last weekend of November, while still retaining the August break is not much different from now but would give us 40 weekends to distribute the races around.
AUTOSPORT's technical expert GARY ANDERSON answers your questions, including whether McLaren-Honda can challenge Mercedes, who was 2014's biggest improver and the mistakes he made in his career
Do you think McLaren will be able to match Mercedes? The Honda engine is unknown, and McLaren produced mediocre chassis recently, so there's doubt...
@eggry, via Twitter
No is the simple answer to that. Or, at least, I will be very, very surprised if they do.
Comparing the 2014 McLaren against the Mercedes chassis, I believe what we have seen over the last few years is McLaren suffering from a lack of direction as to what makes a racing car go fast.
It is not just about maximising downforce, it is about producing a car that is adequate in all areas. But most importantly, it needs to be driver-friendly to give confidence.
The driver will bring you a bigger improvement in lap time if they have confidence in the equipment around them than you will get from another 10 kilos of peaky downforce.
Mercedes has been assembling the building blocks for a few years and now it is about maximising the output of all of those people.
We always talk about Aldo Costa, Geoff Willis, Paddy Lowe etc joining the team but it is the other people that were there before them that have really bought into the situation and upped their game. People like John Owen, a really clever guy, who stays under the radar and gets on with it.
As for the engine, I believe that unless Bernie Ecclestone gets his way and we go back to those very noisy simple V8s revving to 18,000rpm, Mercedes will have the upper hand for another couple of years.
What Andy Cowell and everyone involved in the engine project at Brixworth built for 2014 is very impressive. Even more impressive is that they really do know why it is good and if the engine homologation rules are relaxed they have a plan to make it even better.
Honda will take a while to get into its stride. It has a habit of laying down a long-term plan and if that is in the right direction then it will be a force. If the plan is going the wrong way then it will be difficult to change that direction.
We won't know where Honda is until testing gets under way and after that I will be able to give a better judgement.
One other thing to remember: the Mercedes chassis and engine might be paid for by Mercedes but both are designed and built in good old Blighty...
Which driver do you think has improved the most over the year?
James Eddolls, via Twitter
James, driver improvement is something that is very difficult to quantify. From my point of view, it is not just about being able to drive fast. It is more about drivers coming to grips with the situation around them and improving it.
Looking at it that way, an experienced driver can improve just as much as a new kid on the block.
So, given that, I would have to give it to Jenson Button. Can you imagine what an experienced driver and past world champion goes through mentally when he starts a new season and the tools he is given by the team just aren't good enough?
On top of that he had a very quick rookie team-mate in Kevin Magnussen who knows nothing else but to drive the wheels off the car. And because he is doing that the team gets behind him.
Jenson proved himself to be a workhorse during 2014 and at the end of the season when his drive was in doubt he kept his head and brought McLaren some very valuable points.
In fact, he was the opposite of what we saw from Fernando Alonso. Once it was all over for him at Ferrari he fell away.
I don't blame him for this but as a professional driver you need to put in 100 per cent every time you sit in the car. He didn't, but Jenson did.
Do you see Williams as capable of being serious title contenders in 2015 and how do they do it?
@TheFinalCountUp, via Twitter
In 2014 Williams climbed back up the ladder to where it should have been for a long time. The team has a very good group of people in place and Claire Williams does a fantastic job of letting people get on with what they are good at.
Some other team principals could learn a lot from how she goes about her business.
But it will be difficult for Williams to take the next step. In 2014, Red Bull and Renault tripped up and as for Ferrari, well I suppose it was similar to Red Bull. Ferrari wasn't really where it should be.
But we never know what we will get from Ferrari. If these two teams/engine builders get their act together then the competition at the front will become even tougher, making it more difficult for Williams.
That said, you have got to be in it to win it and Williams is certainly back so let battle commence.
What's the biggest mistake you made in your long career in motorsport?
Sarah Bates, via email
Sarah, I'm not sure there is enough space for me to list my mistakes! There were many during my 42 years. I started as a mechanic and I suppose you could say I 'progressed' to being a technical director. So I will look at my time in the technical director position.
As for my biggest mistake, I would have to say it was not joining a big team when I had the offers and the motivation to succeed. I never did this because I always felt there was more satisfaction in the underdog getting it right and kicking the big boys in the goolies.
A racing car is made up from many individual components. The sum of these is what gives it its performance and I am someone who needs to be involved in all of this.
I like to get my hands dirty and need to have the gut feel of how everything will work together.
If I had joined a big team, my job would have been sitting at a desk shuffling paperwork around. At the time I needed that like a hole in the head.
If I was a few years younger and the offer came around again I would take it but only with the understanding that I would set up the operation very similar to how Red Bull works.
Adrian Newey and I are very similar; he needs to be directly involved day to day, he has people around him that shuffle the paper work allowing him to get his hands dirty and to feel what he is creating.
If you could choose any two current drivers to put in your line-up, Gary, who would you take for 2015? And would it be two established stars or a top liner and one for the future?
Mitch Connor, via Facebook
Mitch, this for me is very easy to answer. It would be exactly what Red Bull has: Daniel Riccardo and Daniel Kyvat are stars of the future.
Riccardo took on four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and thrashed him. As Christian Horner says, it was Riccardo's speed that finally made Vettel decide to go to Ferrari.
As for Kyvat, in his rookie year he did a great job. It is always difficult to judge a driver when he is with a smaller team as they are never quite as consistent as the big teams.
But if Kvyat wasn't part of Q3 on Saturday afternoons he was always knocking on the door. And remember Toro Rosso was also using the Renault engine, and on some occasions it was the top Renault-engined team.
They are going to have some great battles, they are both full of confidence and neither of them will give an inch. Hopefully Renault will improve its engine enough to allow those battles to be right at the front.
Given the different climates in different countries, could we have racing over the winter months and start the season earlier, finish later but only have a race every two or three weeks?
David Williams, via Facebook
David, there is no reason why not. I am old enough to remember when the first race in Argentina was the first weekend of January and the last race was at Watkins Glen in America in late October. There were normally only 16 or 17 races in those days so you did get the odd break but to counter that we drove to all of the European races, so that added a couple of days at least to each weekend.
If we are going to have in excess of 20 races in a season then they need to be spread out. Some of them are more cost-efficient as double headers because they are in the same part of the world but this is a small saving. Last year Australia and Malaysia were separated but no one made much noise about it.
Everyone that works on the race team has a family life so being on the road constantly is no easy thing. I have been married for 37 of my 42 years in this sport and I have to give thanks to my wife Jennie for putting up with me and making sure my washing was ready for the next trip.
These are the sort of things that would need sorting but it is not impossible.
Starting on the first weekend of March and ending on the last weekend of November, while still retaining the August break is not much different from now but would give us 40 weekends to distribute the races around.
