Can I have NO Doctor & Commercial Manager before Level 5?

Do I really need to be paying a contract wage for the Commercial Manager and Doctor before I reach Level 5? As in... Do I need to even fill their position in order to race successfully? Am I just paying them money for team morale support?

I know that the Doctor helps with atrophy, but if I don't have a doctor until I am level 5, can I just NOT have a Doctor? The same question applies to the Commercial Manager. Can I just have NO Commercial Manager until I reach level 5? Will I be allowed to race without these staff positions filled? Is it a smart thing to try? Will it have any negative affects on the race and/or team?

I would just auto sign for those places in your staff & then they will cost just 1000 per race. You could auto sign drivers too, they won't be the least expensive per race, but you will avoid paying a signing fee.

Surely auto signing the driver will cause you to suffer bad results in the races, i have just started the game and from what i read it is a benefit to sign the best driver you can.

To answer your question yes, you can race with no staff. As for how healthy it is for your team I have no idea. I'd atleast have a doctor and designer in place. 

@Michael: when you just start you can't see the driver specifics, and you can't see the higher level drivers. So, yes, a better driver is a benefit, but the driver you hire at start isn't going to be that good anyway, so you might as well take a random one, and safe the money.
At level 4 you can see the level 4 drivers. Among those there are some with real talent (up to 18). They are underdeveloped in other aspect, but those you can train. At that moment you can switch to a (potentially) good driver. Don't wait to long - you waste all the training. Don't hire to  soon - make sure you can find a driver with some talent.

I have also just started, I have reduced right down on commercial team and added to mt design and technical. I retained commercial director as I think it has bearing on amount you can get from sponsor and doctor helps with atrophy so I retained. Again not sure if it is the right move but feels sensible at the moment as I'm still only level1

My opinions, based on my research and study of the game's workings:

• Drivers: Like Mr. Redmeijer said above, you won't find a truly decent one until about Level 4. Once you get there, hire the best one you can get. I look for a balance of high talent, young age, high health and high stamina. Talent can't be boosted by training; it's a static value. Young drivers don't atrophy like older ones (my experience says drivers will stagnate about age 29 or 30). High health and stamina means you can have them push harder through the race, which can come in handy depending on your league/tier. When your driver's health goes low during a race his/her lap times suffer. I've won races simply because my driver's times didn't fall off like the rest of the field's did and I could make up places later on.
  
• Chief Designers: Always try get the best one that's available (sort by Overall Level, the graphs for Experience and such don't matter). Higher level designers increase your rate of car development and also the potential performance.
  
• Commercial Managers: They don't do anything. You should Auto-Sign this position if anything. Marketers are useless until you can get the Commerce facility at Level 5. Fire them and shift the staff spaces to Designers, Engineers and Mechanics.
  
• Technical Directors: The Experience rating of Technical Directors influences the Litres per Lap estimate you get when preparing for your next race; otherwise they do nothing. Another slot to Auto-Sign.
  
• Doctors: I personally have found no evidence to suggest that better Doctors decrease driver atrophy rates in the game in its current state. The only thing I've found that affects atrophy rate is the age of the driver.
  

Thanks guys.

And thank you James. I've followed most of what you said already, but I have never really trusted the Auto-sign. I kind of do see reasons why, but have not tried it yet. Discovering how this all works is fun, but at the same time it seems there are many routes where one could easily waste money as a newbie. At least I've done well in my first few races and seeing profit after each race!

Also, I am curious about the "Morale" seen on most support staff. If they have a near full Morale rating does that greatly improve the race performance? I have a staff that has pretty good Morale stats, but my new Chief Designer does not have the highest Morale. Hoping that will not affect me greatly.

One more thing. When I am designing components at maximum for Current Season I have noticed the performance levels gained are not going up as fast as they did when I first started. This is cool, but I am wondering what can keep the design capabilities at their highest, where possible. For example, I started developing/designing parts around +7 or +8 per part, but now, after I've reach ~45% performance the performance gains are around +5 and becoming +4. Will having a really good Designer improve this or do I have to train them to have higher skill to keep the performance gains optimal?

I've not noticed Morale having any affect on performance, but my team Morale tends to be high because I use the Health training frequently (to boost my driver's health percentage).

Regarding design updates, the behaviour you're experiencing is normal. The higher your performance, the slower the gains will be. It's not unusual to see only 1 or 2% gains when your parts are at a very high level. I believe having a good designer helps, but only up to a point.