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Sky coverage is on demand?

I'm just glad that i'm not watching Dutch tv this year. I'm sure Mol would have ejaculated prematurely before every race end.....

Mol misses so much I bet he even misses that max is racing half of the time.

It's on demand on demand. You pay three times for F1 on Sky in England. First for the license fee (which all goes to BBC), then for a Sky subscription, and then finally for the F1 on Sky channel.

Haha still that bad ey. The sad thing is the networks don't have anybody else or willing to invest in a 2nd commentator. They're still one of a very few who have a single commentator i think. It's sad really. And by the time Mol retires, some generic presenter will take over and it will flop. Calling it.

Something else, could someone post the full article from Autosport about the steel brakes? Very curious on what the conclusion is.

Ask Gary: Should F1 switch to steel brakes?
Would going back to steel brake discs solve F1's overtaking problems, should F1 drop wings and would enclosed wheels help downforce? Just some of the questions tackled by GARY ANDERSON this week

By Gary Anderson
Technical consultant

Would a return to steel discs offer a quick fix for F1 overtaking woes? It would also be more relevant to the auto industry, which is unlikely to adopt carbon discs universally...
Roger Smith, via email

When Alex Zanardi drove for Williams in 1999, he couldn't get used to the carbon discs and pads so he used steel discs. It didn't really do the job for him but what he did show was that it was possible. Patrick Head said he was surprised that the performance on the steel brakes with carbon-metallic pads wasn't too bad.

The carbon discs are the safest option as the thermal shock in the discs when the driver stands on the brake pedal is enormous and steel discs can suffer from this more.

I am sure there are engineering solutions for this, but the question is if that was all sorted would it bring better racing? I don't believe so.

This is because the enormous amounts of downforce these cars produce in a straight line is what really reduces the braking distances. Even if the aerodynamic grip was reduced by up to 80 per cent and replaced with mechanical grip (through the tyres - see below) the braking grip would still be there.

There is no one-pill fix for overtaking problems. Reducing aerodynamic downforce dramatically and increasing mechanical grip would be a big help, but we also need to work on the circuits. To many corners are one-racing-line corners with no opportunity to overtake.

Why could we not have a slightly banked corner that would offer another racing line around the outside?

If you look at Sochi, the track surface was very slippery and different from other tracks. Why could we not have this as a norm on the inside racing line with a higher grip surface around the outside?

If windtunnels were banned in Formula 1, surely aerodynamics won't be as good as CFD is not quite there yet?
Stefan Ruitenberg, via Twitter

Stefan banning either of these is just stupid. It's like saying 'we are going to ban technology'. The teams invest heavily in these tools to build a better product within the regulations that they are given.

The only problem that F1 has is the regulations. They are responsible for the poor racing we have seen on many occasions and they are responsible for the escalating costs that mean the smaller teams are struggling to continue.

The problem is that the people tasked with fixing this problem are the same people that have created it...

How much testing would be needed to create cars that would replace at least 70-80 per cent of today's aerodynamic grip with mechanical grip (through wider cars, bigger tyres etc)?
Luis Regner, via Twitter

Luis, if someone came up with a set of regulations that was able to eliminate 70-80 per cent of aerodynamic grip and replace it with mechanical grip, then the teams would come to terms with it without any extra circuit testing and I'll bet you the racing would be much better.

The reason for this is sort of answered above. The current regulations have reduced circuit testing so much that teams have invested heavily in driver-in-the-loop circuit simulation tools.

It is these tools that have driven up costs and that have given us poor racing. Teams and drivers optimise their car set-up and design direction from these very sophisticated pieces of equipment. The more you spend the more detail can be simulated.

However, no one I have ever heard of actually does their simulation using a turbulent aero map. It is all done using perfect airflow aero maps so the car set-up is derived around ideal conditions and then we wonder why overtaking is difficult.

If F1 covered its wheels, like the recent McLaren MP4-X concept car, how much would it cut drag or improve downforce because airflow to the rest of the car would be less turbulent?
Darjan Petric, via email

The open wheels are responsible for around 35 per cent of the drag of an F1 car. Covering them would not mean it would go to zero, but it would be drastically reduced.

As far as the downforce is concerned, it would have an influence but not as much as one would think.

If you look closely at an F1 car, the overall design philosophy is to detach the wheels from the rest of the car aerodynamically. The McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari concepts all just exploit this to different degrees.

The airflow management around an open wheel is one of the most difficult things thrown at you when designing an F1 car. But it is not all negative, it can be used to your advantage as well.

What would happen in Formula 1, if both front and rear wings were prohibited, along with an extensions from the body that did not cover some mechanical component?
Dan Nall, via email

Dan, the short answer is I don't have a clue. It would be different but the engineers would like the very opposite to what you are saying. Give them less restrictive regulations and let them get on with it.

I am sure Adrian Newey and many others would like a set of goalposts at the end of the pitlane; if the car could drive through it would be legal.

You cannot put everything you have learned in the bin. If the road car market was to step backwards to the late 1960s and a top of the line road car was an Austin Allegro doing 20 miles to the gallon, would we be happy?

In my meagre motorsport experience, many years ago (night navigation rallies through our labyrinth of roads in Northern Ireland), scrutineering was held before the start and if anything was amiss, it was a case of "you'll have to sort that out before I'll let you start", which I always thought was the sporting way to deal with things. Why then, in F1, do the stewards silently go about their business before the race but only mention their misgivings once the race has begun and proceed to issue penalties, exclusions etc, when a simple "I'm not letting you start with that tyre pressure" would suffice?
Glenn English, via email

Glenn, I remember those nights very well. That was when rallying really was rallying.

I was back in Northern Ireland last week and driving along the side of the River Bann to my nephew's house in a rental car on a very twisty and undulating road. I was reliving some of those fantastic nights. My wife wasn't best pleased but we made it.

As for your question, I completely agree - why allow a driver to start in that situation?

The tyre temperature and pressure control was put in place on safety grounds, so if a car is suspected of contravening this directive, surely it is unsafe?

The team should have been informed and the driver concerned should have been forced to come into the pits at the end of the warm-up lap, change his tyres to a set of the same compound with legal temperatures and pressures and then start from the pitlane.

Any advice for a mechanical engineering student from Northern Ireland looking to become a motorsport engineer?
Adam Hall, via Twitter

Adam, you need to get yourself involved with a team just to get as much experience as possible. It doesn't matter what championship you are doing it in, the important thing is it shows your commitment on your CV.

During that period, get on with your studies and hopefully your experience with a team will help you to focus on what area of mechanical design you're most interested in.

Yep will do shortly. It's just the weekly Q&A with Gary Anderson.

Thanks. I could only read the first lines and had to pay to see more, so I had no idea