F1: Pit Lane Penalties, Hamilton's Engineer, Yo-Yo Racing, and Red Bull's Engine

Round eight of Formula 1 season takes place in Austria this weekend in the stunning surroundings of the Styrian hills.

Last time out in Barcelona, Mercedes were beaten in a grand prix for the first time this year with Lewis Hamilton taking victory.

The Briton's first grand prix win for Ferrari, combined with Kimi Antonelli's retirement late in the race, narrowed the gap at the top of the drivers' championship to 41 points.

Before Sunday's race in Spielberg, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions.

A retrospective podium for Pierre Gasly. Justice? Or a can of worms best left unopened? - Clive

Formula 1 has clearly got itself in a bit of a pickle regarding the pit-lane speeding penalties in the Monaco Grand Prix.

The facts are that five cars were given penalties for pit-lane speeding when none of them had gone over the limit.

The length of the pit lane had been mis-measured - it was possible to drive a shorter distance than officials initially realised, by 77 metres.

And as the pit-lane speed limit is policed by the time taken to pass through a series of timing loops over a specific distance, that meant the drivers were wrongly penalised.

This led to a sequence of events that had a dramatic effect on the race result.

George Russell was most badly affected by what followed, having a third place turned into a 12th and losing 15 points in the process.

But McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Red Bull's Isack Hadjar also had their results changed.

Is it justice that Gasly is returned to a third place at the flag that he lost because Alpine refused to serve his penalty during the race, while the other drivers' results are unaddressed?

Should the stewards who dealt with Alpine's right of review over the Barcelona weekend have left it at that, and not raised the very obvious questions that followed on from it?

In terms of natural justice, the answer to both those questions is clearly no - there remain a number of issues raised by this situation that have not properly been dealt with.

McLaren and Red Bull have taken the case to the FIA court of appeal. No date has yet been set for that to be heard.

Mercedes have withdrawn their attempt to get the race result reviewed after concluding there was no viable mechanism for restoring Russell to where he could have finished, and it would not serve anybody to drag it all on.

As McLaren said in their statement about giving notice of intention to appeal: "We believe this case raises important questions concerning sporting fairness, regulatory consistency and the integrity of competition."

The shame is that this could all have been avoided had the FIA and F1 acted differently before the race.

Teams warned the FIA that there was a problem waiting to happen with the pit-lane speeding limit during the Monaco weekend.

Officials did look into it, but their initial conclusion was that the concerns were unfounded. That was clearly an error. Had that been properly addressed at the time, none of this would have happened.

In terms of sporting fairness, it's hard not to conclude that the issue should be taken to a full and proper conclusion.

Will Ferrari make Carlo Santi Lewis Hamilton's permanent full-time race engineer, or is his role still considered temporary? - Anthony

The relationship between Lewis Hamilton and his new race engineer Carlo Santi has started off well.

Santi was initially meant to be a stop-gap before Hamilton received a new full-time engineer, but a Ferrari spokesperson says: "Carlo and Lewis are working pretty well together and there's no plan to replace him."

Hamilton has found a much more satisfactory relationship with Santi than he had with Riccardo Adami last year, and he's tried to explain that without sounding too negative about his situation in 2025.

Hamilton said in Canada, where he finished second for what was his best result with Ferrari at the time, that Santi was "absolutely awesome and I'm really loving working with him".

In Monaco he went further and compared the relationship with Santi to the one he forged over 12 years at Mercedes with Peter 'Bono' Bonnington.

"Driver-engineer working together is very, very important," Hamilton said. "Last year, Adami and I had a really good relationship. He's a lovely guy. We worked relatively well together.

"Catering to a driver's needs takes time to learn.

"When you're giving an engineer feedback, their understanding of through-corner balance, their understanding of all the elements that contribute to the struggles that you're struggling with, you try to describe what it is, the problem you have, corner by corner, entry, mid and exit where you dissect it into five sections if you want.

"Having that driver-engineer collab, it's hit and miss sometimes. With me and Bono, we hit it off from the beginning. He had a good working relationship with Michael (Schumacher). I do feel like Carlo is like my Italian Bono.

"He's a bit of an OG. He's an older guy that's been around the block and he's very calm. You can hear him on the radio. That's the detail that we're able to go into together. Our understanding of the engineer side, it's something that's very cool."

There was very little "yo-yo" racing in Barcelona. What were the main reasons for this? - Paul

So-called 'yo-yo racing' is a new feature of on-track battles that has been seen at some races since the start of the 2026 season.

The term has been used to describe battles where two cars swap position repeatedly over a number of laps until the fight settles down and the fundamentally faster car establishes a gap.

Two inter-related factors are involved in creating this sort of racing.

One is the new 'overtake' mode, the other is the way the 2026 engines work, almost completely depleting and recharging batteries several times a lap.

Overtake mode is the replacement this year for the DRS overtaking aid. It allows a driver within one second of a car in front to recover and deploy an extra 0.5MJ of electrical energy per lap.

This makes it easier to follow and overtake the car in front. But the overtake mode then passes to the car that has just been overtaken as long as it stays within one second, so it then has an energy advantage.

On top of that, certain circuit layouts lend themselves to strategic use of the battery.

Yo-yo racing has tended to appear most commonly on tracks where there are two straights separated by a slow corner.

Take, for example, Suzuka, where the run up the hill from Spoon Curve through 130R is followed by a chicane and then another long straight down to Turn One.

Or China, where the long back straight is followed by a hairpin, a short squirt to the final corner, and then the pit straight.

In these circumstances, the battery does not have enough capacity to deliver a full charge on both straights, and it's not possible to recover enough energy in one braking zone to fully recharge it.

So, for example, if one driver chooses to deploy battery to either defend or attack on the first straight, and the other does not, he will be out of charge on the second and get passed. And vice versa.

Barcelona only has one long straight, the pit straight. So the same phenomenon does not occur. Hence, no yo-yo-racing.

It was interesting to find out that Red Bull have the most powerful engine. Beyond the question of understanding how they achieved this, as they are not one of the big car manufacturers, I was asking myself why are Red Bull not competing for race wins every weekend? - Simon

"Interesting" is not the word Red Bull would use for the declaration by the FIA that they have the most powerful internal combustion engine in Formula 1 this year.

"Surprising" would be more like it.

They don't believe it's the case. They think Mercedes have the best engine. So they have asked the FIA to have another look at its findings.

This is an important issue because under the rules, Red Bull are, as things stand, not allowed to develop their engine this year or next, whereas everyone else is.

However that debate ends up, it's clear that Red Bull's new engine company - set up specifically for these new regulations - has done an outstanding job in its debut season.

On the chassis side, Red Bull admit that they are not competitive with the best. Team principal Laurent Mekies said in April that they were "even more so (behind) in terms of chassis performance. So we know we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Red Bull have already introduced one major car upgrade this year. Others are needed for a team that is on average 0.675secs off the pace in qualifying so far this year.

The spectre hanging over Red Bull is that this level of performance is not what Max Verstappen expects, nor will it be enough to lock him into his contract for the next season.

Verstappen's contract runs to 2028, but it has a performance clause in it, the details of which are not completely clear, but mean in the current circumstances that he can leave at the end of this season if he wants to.

If he does, the obvious destination is Mercedes, which would lead to a cascade of driver moves.

For now, though, it all hinges on what Verstappen chooses to do.