Racing team management game - Overview, how to first choose quantities?

As I previously said in the "Welcome to BGDF" forum, my first attempt at game design will be about one of my main interests, formula one racing. It won't be another race simulation, but rather a game focusing on team management where the race itself is only a very streamlined phase of the game: it will be composed of just four "stints" where cars will change position depending on how the characteristics of the car, the driver and the track are combined, and what's the fueling stragegy.
Drivers are classed A to E according to these characteristics:
Speed, Constancy, Overtaking, Qualifying
Cars have an Engine (also classed A to E, better engines cost more per race) and an aero score (which improves throughout the race calendar by researching car parts).

Every race track will have a table which assigns weights to those characteristics in order to define starting positions and shifts during the race. In qualification, the variables are car Engine and Aero, driver Qualifying and fuel carried. The track-specific table specifies how much you sum to get the quali and race scores: for example, racer John Doe, who's A-class in qualifying and has a car with a D-class engine and A-class aero would get +4 for Qualifying, +2 for engine, +5 for aero and -2 for carrying fuel for two stints (total 11), but in Monza the same driver in the same car carrying the same amount of fuel would get +3 for qualifying, +1 for engine and +1 for aero, -2 for having fuel for 2 stints), in order to reflect the fact that different tracks have different emphasis on each aspect.
This sum will define where a driver start in the grid and since the only hidden variable is fuel level (others are open), players simultaneously reveal how much fuel they will have in each car. In the race itself, a similar calculation is done except that the class "Speed" is used instead of "Qualifying" (so it is possible that a driver is a "bad qualifier", but fast in the race). Cars move in the track based on the sum, starting with the car in front. If the car behind has a sum which would allow him to "jump" the car in front, an overtaking situation must be solved, and it is successful or not based on 1) how many points he still have once he got in the same space as the car in front (e.g., if he got a 12 sum in that stint and after 5 moves he's already in the same space as the car in front, he's more likely to succeed than if he needed 11 moves to get there and has just one left), the driver Overtaking class, and a difficulty which is track specific (e.g., drivers would need a higher sum to overtake in Monaco than they would need to do it in Monza). The Constancy class means a driver gets four "penalties" to be used in the four stints. For example, a good driver would get two 0s and three -1s, while a bad driver in that feature would get two -2, a -3 and a -4. The driver has to use each of these penalties during the race (one for each stint), and the order is chosen by the player controling the car behind him (as if he was "inducing the front driver to error"). Fuel carried reduces the total sum and unless a driver decides to make the qualification with fuel for the four stints (which means a heavy penalty in the first stint, a slightly lighter one in the second, etc), he'll need at least one pit stop. When a car makes a pit stop, he gets a sum penalty and the cars not doing a pit stop in that stint will be able to overtake him without solving the overtaking event (i.e., they simply use the sum to go through the other car space as if he wasn't there).
In the ideal world where I succeed in balance all this, that would mean different race outcomes would be possible with no dice involved, just by the players choices of fueling strategy and "constancy penalties" order. I don't rule out the use of dice if I don't succeed, though (which would mean they could also be used for the Worker Placement phase as in Stone Age).

Question 1: balancing many numerical variables
I'm a newbie, so perhaps I've chosen a hard to balance first design. There are many things to tweak here, so I wonder how this is normally done. Since I code myself, I've even thought of writing a program that would simulate races based on different values for those variables - I wonder if other people here use this approach and how.

The other core aspect of the game will be the planning between races, which will be a worker placement stage where players will be able to improve the car and deal with money (money by the end of game calendar will be the winning condition). Players can:
Hire employees (enables them to do more things, but cost an amount of money per race)
Use employees to research new designs (open cards with things like car appendices, wings, etc. which improves the car aero score).
Changing drivers - all drivers have a given salary (amount of money spent per race). Players can hire any available driver they want for that amount, or try to snatch drivers from other players by paying more (in that case, if a player wants to keep that driver, he is forced to raise the current salary). There are also "pay drivers" who cost no money and actually give money for the player on each race, but they have very bad driving features.
Assigning employees to pit stop crew (reduce penalty during stops)
Media events: uses employees to gather money from sponsors
Another way to get money would actually be implemented in the race - a driver could try a "glory run", where it would make his qualifying as if it had no fuel (and so no penalty). If a team that never got a pole position manages to do it by "running on fumes", it gets additional money, but in the first race stint even the cars with fuel for just one stint will be able to overtake it as if they weren't there.

Question 2: Number of Cards
How many different cards should I start with before building the first prototype? I need a given number of design cards (each one saying how many employees and/or money is needed to build that design and its increase in Aero) and also Media Events cards (amounts of employees used, amount of money received). I would love if the game would be playable with a big amount of people (something like 6, for example).

I also thought of a catchup feature on which some of the designs were "copyable" (as is usually the case in F1, by the way) - once a player successfully builds a design, other players could "copy" them in the next race using fewer resources.

Aside from sponsor money and media events, cars get points by their quali positions, race results and by scoring the "fastest lap" (i.e., being the one which made the highest position shift during the race - ties favor the one who did it later in the race).

If anyone have further thoughts before I start the prototype (which I'll only be able to do early January anyway), I'd be glad to know).