[Jeff Higgins]

Is it really so much the drivers in those back markers, or is it the cars? I don't think we have ever seen a greater disparity in performance in the cars themselves than we are seeing today.

The very, very restrictive technical regulations and cost caps are ostensibly meant to produce more equal performance amongst the teams. I think they have had the opposite affect. The engineering talent in F1 is probably represented by a much higher, sharper pyramid than that of the drivers. I'm sure there are plenty of "90%" engineers to go around, but there are very, very few 98-100%, like Adrian Newey et al. Those guys can work within a very narrow set of parameters, with very little wiggle room, to find every hidden advantage and exploit it. The other guys need more open playing fields, wherein they can try some really creative, "out of the box" solutions in hopes of catching some success. Something really wild, that no one else had thought of. With those opportunities gone, I think the very narrow margins of today give the advantage to a very, very few engineers, and there aren't enough of them to go around.