FORMULA 1 - 2016

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Toro Rosso matched Ferrari's pace at Silverstone, says Kvyat

Daniil Kvyat says his Scuderia Toro Rosso squad deserved to get more out of the British Grand Prix - and that it even matched a struggling Ferrari outfit on race pace.

The Russian finished 10th, behind Toro Rosso teammate Carlos Sainz and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

It was only the second point Kvyat has scored since rejoining STR, having earned the same result in Spain.

“We fought our way back to the points,” he said.

“I think we deserved a bit more this weekend, especially my side of the garage. I felt on Friday we had really good pace on our long run.

"[On Sunday] we just stuck on the medium on the car after the intermediate start and then we just went until the end with no major issues.

“Our pace was comparable, I think, with Sebastian’s pace, and I think, if our pace is comparable with Ferrari’s at this track, I think it wasn’t too bad a race. Many things to analyse, but so far it didn’t feel bad.”

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Rosberg faces wait over gearbox situation for Hungary

Nico Rosberg will have to wait until next week to find out if he will have to have a new gearbox fitted for the Hungarian Grand Prix in the wake of his Silverstone troubles.

The German suffered a failure six laps from the chequered flag at the British GP when his car got briefly stuck in seventh gear.

Radio instructions from the pitwall helped him overcome the issues but earned him a 10-second time penalty for breaking F1's team radio rules.

Rosberg had previously incurred a grid penalty for a gearbox change during the Austrian Grand Prix, after a suspension failure sent him into the barriers.

The six grand prix duty cycle of the current gearbox, which was was fitted as a replacement in Austria, is due to last until the end of the Italy weekend.

Should it, in turn, need to be replaced for the Budapest event, then that will lead to a five-place grid penalty – which will be particularly painful as overtaking is so hard at the Hungaroring.

Despite the public nature of the gearbox failure on Sunday, it is unclear if the issues Rosberg suffered actually caused any physical damage to components.

Under F1's rules, as soon as a gearbox is used for the first time, the FIA attaches seals to it to ensure that no significant moving parts can be rebuilt or replaced.

This means that Mercedes will not be able to perform any detailed checks until it gets to Hungary next week. There, under FIA supervision, changes to gears and dog rings (excluding final drives or reduction gears) can be made for others with identical specification.

Before then, however, Mercedes is able to conduct some visual inspections and it is understood that early analysis has not highlighted any cause for major concern yet.

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Rosberg insists F1 title challenge isn’t stalling

Nico Rosberg has dismissed suggestion his F1 title challenge is losing momentum in the wake of four wins in the last five races for his rival and team-mate Lewis Hamilton. 

Four wins from the opening four races had seen Rosberg command a 43 point advantage over Hamilton as recently as the Monaco Grand Prix, but a run of four victories in five races for the defending champion has seen the margin shrink to just a single point. 

Coming in the wake of controversial results in Austria and Great Britain for the German, Rosberg says he is choosing to remain positive about his chances and won't be dwelling on the looming threat of the in-form Hamilton. 

“It has been a very good first half of the season and leading the championship, so it's been a pretty damn good start to the season which I'm pleased about. I've had some good races, I had a good race in Austria which went wrong, yeah it can happen and then a good run out there in the dry today, well not so much in the beginning of the race, so there's a lot of positives. 

“Anyway I'm feeling great and the battle is on with Lewis, I'm not counting points because it's still such a long way to go and I don't like to do that. For me, the best thing is to win races, which is what I want to do at the moment, just focus on the races and don't look at what is going to happen in six months' time.” 

Nevertheless, Rosberg admits his dominant start to the year did somewhat flatter to deceive as his main rivals hit various problems. 

“You must remember that I benefitted from the others, having a very, very messy start, my competitors. That definitely has changed.” 
 

 

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Verstappen now a force to be reckoned with in F1, Hamilton feels

Lewis Hamilton believes Max Verstappen is now "a force to be reckoned with" in Formula 1 following the Red Bull driver's latest performance in the British Grand Prix.

Verstappen won his first grand prix with Red Bull in Spain after being promoted from Toro Rosso, and has now scored back-to-back second-place finishes at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone.

The latter came after Nico Rosberg received a 10-second penalty, but Verstappen overtook Rosberg in the greasy conditions before later keeping the faster Mercedes at bay for several laps.

"We knew they would be fast," Hamilton said of Red Bull.

"Going into the race I think they said we had half-a-second of pace or something, potentially, [over] Red Bull.

"Whether or not it was half-a-second I don't know, but we definitely had pace against them.

"Max drove a fantastic race and is continuing to show he's a force to be reckoned with."

While Rosberg felt Verstappen's defence and number of changes of lines was "on the edge, massively on the limit", Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has been highly impressed with the 18-year-old.

"The Red Bull car is generally a car that functions very well in the wet, with a lot of drag," said Wolff.

"But his racecraft is spectacular, and with the way he positions the car.

"You can see if he has a good car underneath him, he is able to put up a great fight."

VERSTAPPEN PUSHING BOTH RED BULL DRIVERS

Verstappen's team-mate Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth and nearly 20 seconds behind at Silverstone, one day after being out-qualified by the Dutch driver for the first time.

While "a little bit pissed off" with losing his perfect 2016 intra-team qualifying record, the Australian said Verstappen's rise would boost both drivers' output.

"It has been a bit different around the team," he said.

"When they made the driver swap there was a lot of noise created around Barcelona and then he went on and won it so that was all a bit chaotic, and then obviously Monaco what happened to me.

"It has been pretty hectic since Max joined, there has been a lot more going on in F1, within the team.

"With myself, he's pushing, he's doing really well and I obviously want to try and keep on top of it.

"I'm sure it's bringing out a bit more in both of us."

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SILVERSTONE TEST DAY 2: RAIKKONEN TOPS FOR FERRARI

Kimi Raikkonen gave Ferrari a much needed boost by ending fastest of all on the second and final day of Formula 1 testing at Silverstone.

The Finn set his best lap time in afternoon, using a set of Pirelli’s yellow-marked soft tyres to set a time of 1:30.665 – the fastest time of the two days of testing at the British Grand Prix venue.

Raikkonen said afterwards, “We’ve been doing our normal testing work, trying different things. We’ve tried to find good things. We always expect more as a team in terms of results. That’s Ferrari: we want to win and keep working. We believe we can still win and we don’t want to give up, but improve.”

Esteban Ocon’s top time was set in the morning in the Mercedes was enough to keep him second, albeit half a second down on Raikkonen. The Frenchman was also the day’s busiest runner as he notched up 139 laps.

Red Bull junior Pierre Gasly continued the team’s strong recent form as he slotted into third, just ahead of Force India reserve driver Nikita Mazepin, for whom the two-day test represented a first ever taste of F1 machinery.

McLaren, fastest on the opening day in the hands of Fernando Alonso, ended up fifth overall, with reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne taking over from the Spaniard. As was the case on day one, the team broke through the 100-lap mark.

“We’ve had quite a successful day – a lot of aero stuff to do this morning and then after that I got some good runs in,” Vandoorne said. “The car felt positive and I could push straight away, which is always a nice feeling.”

Williams regular Valtteri Bottas was sixth fastest, with the team devoting part of the final hour to trialling its radical double-decker rear wing. The Finn ended the day nearly a full second clear of Haas rookie Santino Ferrucci – the American enjoying his second full day in the VF-16.

Jolyon Palmer was the day’s other regular driver and the Briton wound ip eighth overall, a few tenths down on Ferrucci.

Young drivers Sergio Sette Camara and Jordan King rounded out the top 10 for Toro Rosso and Manor respectively, while Pascal Wehrlein managed 128 laps but was the slowest of the day’s runners as he focused on developing Pirelli’s 2017 compounds in a 2014-spec Mercedes.

Sauber were the only team not present at the test.

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WEHRLEIN: GETTING NOTICED AT MANOR IS DIFFICULT

Pascal Wehrlein has indicated he wants his Formula 1 career to step up a notch for the 2017 Formula 1 season and beyond.

A few days ago, the Mercedes-backed rookie said he would be happy to stay with the backmarker team Manor next year.

“First and foremost this is a huge opportunity and I need to take advantage of this chance, of course,” the 21-year-old German told DPA news agency after testing Mercedes’ 2014 car for Pirelli at Silverstone. “But the problem is that getting noticed at Manor is difficult.”

“If you don’t include the weekend in Austria, there has not been much of a highlight. On the other hand, if Austria had been a bad weekend, I would have no chance to draw attention to myself this year. So this was a key weekend for me,” Wehrlein added.

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FORCE INDIA AGAINST HALO COCKPIT SAFETY SYSTEM

Force India joined Red Bull on Tuesday in opposing plans to introduce a proposed ‘halo’ cockpit protection device in Formula One next season.

Red Bull had the device on their car at the start of testing at Silverstone, becoming the second team to try it out after Ferrari, but team principal Christian Horner said he was not a fan of the “inelegant solution”.

“I’d prefer there to be more research time taken to do the job properly, rather than rushing something through that may have other consequences,” he told reporters after Sunday’s British Grand Prix. “I certainly wouldn’t vote in favour at the moment.”

Force India deputy principal Bob Fernley told Sky Sports television on Tuesday, with rain teeming down at Silverstone, that he agreed with Horner.

“I believe that it’s too hasty. We need to do a lot more work to understand that the halo isn’t going to create other problems, which I think it will do,” he said. “I think we should take our time and get the right solution and then introduce it.”

The concept, more like a wishbone with a central pillar supporting a protective loop above the driver’s head, has been promoted by Ferrari and Mercedes, whereas Red Bull prefer their own ‘aeroscreen’.

The latter device, more attractive to some, did not perform as well in testing by the governing body and the halo is now the main focus.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) is keen to introduce it next year but that would require a unanimous vote by top teams, including Red Bull, as a change to the technical regulations.

The FIA could impose it on safety grounds, however, while approval for 2018 would require only a majority vote.

Ferrari tested a second version of the halo last Friday in British Grand Prix practice but four times world champion Sebastian Vettel, who did a lap with it, said visibility remained a concern.

The device was modified from an earlier version, removing some weight and reducing the risk of the driver’s head striking it in the event of an impact.

Improving head protection has become a priority after the deaths last year of Briton Justin Wilson, hit by debris in an IndyCar crash, and Frenchman Jules Bianchi, who suffered ultimately fatal injuries at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.

The halo aims to protect the driver’s head and deflect large debris and objects, such as bouncing wheels.

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HAAS LEAVES DRIVER QUESTION OPEN FOR NOW

Haas is leaving its driver lineup for the 2017 Formula 1 season open for now, although it is almost certain that Romain Grosjean is staying at the new American team next year, particularly after Ferrari extended their deal with Kimi Raikkonen.

“It is not true that I went to Haas only because of Ferrari,” the Frenchman, referring to Haas’ close technical partner, is quoted by Speed Week. “I see this as a long-term project.”

Esteban Gutierrez, Ferrari’s former reserve driver, is similarly linked with the works team as are his Mexican backers, but his future seems less clear than Grosjean’s.

Haas team boss Gunther Steiner said: “We have agreed to only talk about the driver lineup after all of the races in Europe.”

F1’s next four grands prix are all in Europe — in Hungary, Germany, Belgium, and finally the Italian grand prix at Monza in early September.

As for Gutierrez, Steiner commented: “It wouldn’t be fair to judge Esteban only on the first half of the season, because there were some races where he was let down.

“We are under no pressure. We are also not negotiating with anyone, because we want to avoid speculation and uncertainty. The drivers should be able to do their performance with the best possible atmosphere,” he added.

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Renault can target Haas in second half of 2016 – Palmer

Renault driver Jolyon Palmer believes that the French manufacturer can aim to eclipse Haas during the second half of the current season, as it continues to work on improving its current car.

On its return to Formula 1 as a works outfit, Renault has scored just six points in the first 10 races of the year, all of which came courtesy of Kevin Magnussen’s seventh-place finish at Sochi.

Magnussen’s teammate Palmer has still yet to score any points, his best finish of the campaign so far coming in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, where he took 11th.

It means the Enstone-based team is down in ninth in the constructors’ standings, 22 behind the Haas squad in eighth.

But Palmer believes the fact that Renault is still focusing mainly on improving its current car, while others shift their attention increasingly towards 2017, gives his team an opportunity to move up the grid.

“I think the ones we need to catch first are Haas,” said the Briton. “They’re the ones just making Q2 and we’re just behind them.

“If we can catch Haas, then that’s Q2, hopefully we’ve got more upgrades than they have for the rest of the year and we can do that.

“Then maybe Toro Rosso are falling away a bit from the group in front, they’ve got the old engine as well, so maybe we have a chance to catch them.

"The tracks [in the second half of the year] can hopefully suit us a little bit better, I’m improving all the time as a driver, so I hope for some points.

“It would be nice to have some more meaningful battles on track, because a lot of the time we’re fighting a Manor or a Sauber, and no-one sees that.”

   

No frustration

Asked if Renault’s lack of competitiveness was making him concerned about his chances of remaining in F1 next year, Palmer said he feels he is driving as well as he has done all season.

“I feel fine, I think I drove better at Silverstone than the rest of the year, keeping the upward trend. I think the team can see that as well,” he said.

“At the end of the day I just have to try and do my best, show what I can do and get the most from the car. The whole team is focused on improving the current situation.”

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Steiner: Perfecting F1 radio rules a near-impossible task

Haas boss Gunther Steiner has said Formula 1's radio rules are not definitive enough - but added that he doesn't envy those whose job it is to write the regulations.

The sport's radio rules have been a subject of much debate recently, and the rhetoric intensified after Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was penalised for what was deemed a breach of the regulations by his team in the British Grand Prix.

And Steiner has now joined a long list of drivers and personnel who have questioned certain aspects of the rules, saying: "I think the biggest difficulty is to make the judgment what is legal or not. The line is not clear.

"How can you write down a clear line [for] what you're saying or if you're taking in a code? If someone suggests what you said was a code - and it wasn't, and you get penalised.

"Before the race engineer says something to the driver, it's coming back to the pit stand, 'can I say this?'. And I don't really know. It's the uncertainty. I think we need to define it better."

"I wouldn't like to write that rule, to be honest. Because, how long is a piece of string? If you start to talk in a code, what's a code? You're going through all these difficulties, I think it's not easy to control."

   

No obvious solution

Steiner insisted, however, that there was no clear answer to F1's current radio rules dilemma.

"Not talking [at all] like it was suggested is not good, we take away from the fans," he said. "If the team cannot influence your strategies, if it's just down to the driver, it isn't really fair, I would say. It's part of the sport.

"But telling them how to start and all that, it's also not right, the car is like a PlayStation car - you do this, you do this, get to this value. It's a fine line.

"Like Rosberg, he had a problem with the gearbox, they told him not to go into that gear, in the end I can say - it could be dangerous going into that gear, 'cause all of a sudden you're in neutral and you fly off.

"It's more the definition of it, it's difficult to rule what is right and what is wrong."

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Mercedes team battle: Paddy Lowe vs Andy Cowell

It's Paddy Lowe versus Andy Cowell in the ultimate F1 obstacle course. Will it be glory for Brackley or Brixworth?!

 

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Felipe Massa: Looking for answers after difficult weekends

In his latest column, Felipe Massa recalls a difficult British Grand Prix and offers his views on F1's radio controversy.

Although I'm happy with what I managed to do at the British Grand Prix, both myself and the Williams Martini Racing team were expecting a different Silverstone weekend.

Sometimes there are important results that come quite easily, and then there are other times where you give the maximum effort without being rewarded with any points. That was the case for me last Sunday.

I had better pace than my teammate, but I still struggled a lot. I had fights with Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and other drivers, but still managed to miss a reward at the end of it.

After our high expectations ahead of the weekend, something did not work as expected. Our engineers had pulled off a substantial technical effort to bring some new components for the last two races, which we hoped would help us.

But at these two races in Austria and Britain, which we should have shown our best, things did not live up to expectations. 

The team though is committed to understanding the reasons for this lack of performance, and I hope that soon we will return to the positions that I know we should be competing in.

Due to the degradation of the rear tyres, I suffered a lot in qualifying, and that did not allow me to perform as well I thought we should. Valtteri had fewer problems than me on single-lap pace, but over race runs I was in a better place, as was confirmed on Sunday.

Despite my difficulties I was able to get in the fight for points, even if it was not a fun ride because I was often having to fight hard for positions against some people who were defending quite hard.

I had several decent battles, and in my fight with Vettel there was also the risk of contact. I complained over the radio because of the fact that he had pushed me off the track, but after the race I saw the television pictures and it was clear there was nothing deliberate in his actions.

Even so, I had been forced off the track, and it is not up to me to judge if he should be punished or not. In the end, it did not have much of an impact on my race, where I ended up 11th.

After a weekend off, we are heading to Budapest, which is a track that over the past two years has been quite difficult for us. But since, on the tracks where we expected more, we did not reach the hoped-for levels of performance, who knows what will happen in Hungary. We could have a surprise!

   

Radio controversy

After the Silverstone race there was a lot of talk about team radio communications between drivers and engineers on the pit wall, because of the penalty that was imposed on Nico Rosberg.

At the Austrian Grand Prix, I had to retire because of a brake problem, and if I had had the chance to discuss thing with my engineers then maybe we could have changed things to help me finish the race. But doing so is not allowed.

When Rosberg suffered gearbox problems, he did not hesitate to ask the engineers what to do – and getting the information that allowed him to solve the problem. Ultimately he did lose a position when the penalty was imposed – but he still remained third.

The current cars are not any more 'mechanical' than they were in the past, but they have evolved to become travelling workshops, and their management is very complex.

We have hundreds of commands on the steering wheel, and I don't think any driver is able to remember all the available options. If he did know them all, he wouldn't be a driver, he would be a race engineer – and also a very good one!

There are so many different combinations of commands, and we have in front of us such a large amount of information, that in the end we focus only on those functions that we use more frequently. I doubt there is a driver who knows all the options he has available.

Plus, I can guarantee you that when we are driving at more than 300km/h, it is not exactly relaxing having to focus attention on the steering wheel rather than watching what is going on on the track.

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WILLIAMS SEARCHING FOR PACE BUT COULD SHORT TERM PAIN LEAD TO GREATER F1 GAIN?

Williams had a “race to forget” at the British Grand Prix, according to the team’s head of performance engineering Rob Smedley.

The Grove-based squad, which finished third in the constructors’ championship for the last two seasons, has slipped to fourth in the standings behind Mercedes, Ferrari and a resurgent Red Bull.

Force India is also closing in fast on Williams, which has not achieved the results it hoped for in recent races. Force India has outscored Williams 31 points to 11 in the last three races, all on power circuits, which should have played to Williams’ strengths. They are now just 19 points behind at the half way stage in the season.

Although Valtteri Bottas scored the team’s first podium finish of the season at the Canadian Grand Prix, its best result since that race came when the Finn finished sixth in Baku, and his teammate Felipe Massa has only scored one point since Monaco.

Writing in his column for Motorsport.com, Massa explained that Williams was searching for answers to its lack of pace at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone.

He wrote: “At these two races in Austria and Britain, which we should have shown our best, things did not live up to expectations.

“The team though is committed to understanding the reasons for this lack of performance, and I hope that soon we will return to the positions that I know we should be competing in.”

Williams has brought upgrades to recent events, including new rear wing endplates and an updated front wing, which was test by Massa in Austria and by both drivers at Silverstone but is still yet to be used in a race.

Smedley described the FW38’s handling at Silverstone as “reasonably well balanced” and although Bottas was able to qualify in a respectable seventh, Massa failed to make Q3.

The race was even worse as both drivers struggled in the wet conditions at the start of the race; a notable characteristic of Williams’ recent cars. Bottas also spun early on and could not recover much ground while Massa needed an extra stop due to heavy and unexpected tyre degradation late in the race.

Given its modest budget compared to Red Bull, it is no surprise that the Milton Keynes outfit has moved ahead of Williams, but the team is thinking further ahead to the new aerodynamic rules coming for next season.

Smedley believes the regulation changes, which will see F1 cars adopt wider and lower rear wings, bigger tyres and broader front wings, offer the team a chance to move up the competitive order.

Speaking earlier this year, he said: “The way we develop the cars in Formula 1 now, with the aerodynamic testing restrictions, is much more favourable for someone who is resource restricted.

“2017 offers Williams a great opportunity to close back to the frontrunners. We have to be able to do that; otherwise you join the second tier of Formula 1.

“We have to exploit that opportunity to the maximum, but the target of the company is to do that and move forwards, not just stay where it is.

“There are a lot of strengths at Williams, and we’ve got to continue to exploit those strengths as well as trying to grow the weaker areas as well.”

One area where Williams has been the class of the field in 2016 has been pitstops. Although Mercedes’ 2.33s effort at Silverstone meant the British team lost its perfect record of completing the fastest stop at every race so far this season, it still has a 9-1 lead over the German manufacturer and holds the fastest turnaround record for the year, which is the 1.92s it took to change Massa’s tyres at the European Grand Prix.

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Renault tries major suspension upgrade in Silverstone F1 testing

Renault has been running the rule over a raft of suspension components during Silverstone testing as it attempts to emerge from its struggles in Formula 1 this season.

While Renault has made considerable gains with its power unit this year on its return to F1 as a works team - as proven via customer Red Bull's performances - on the chassis side the RS16 has been weak.

A main area of concern has been the suspension as the car has been notoriously difficult to handle on bumpy circuits.

Jolyon Palmer's day at the wheel on the final day of in-season testing this year at Silverstone focused on a new suspension, with a direct comparison to the one used at the weekend.

"We've some big suspension updates we're trying, and a few aero bits," said Palmer, whose team of mechanics changed the suspension over lunch.

"All the time we've got some new bits going on, but the suspension is a big focus for us at the moment

"We're doing a back-to-back [comparison] over the course of the day and hopefully can find something.

"In the morning we ran something different to the race weekend, and then we reverted back, so we'll see what happens."

Palmer has so far endured a torrid time in his debut F1 season since a high of 11th in the opening race in Australia, notably with three retirements in the last five races.

A gearbox fault brought an end to his home grand prix on Sunday after 37 laps, although he maintains there were "quite a lot of positives" he took from the race.

"In the wet I was feeling good, ahead of Kev [team-mate Magnussen] and catching [Romain] Grosjean, so things were looking quite good," said Palmer.

"Monaco was the only wet race I have done in Formula 1, and that didn't go so well [Palmer crashed out early].

"This one was a lot better, making calls between wets, inters and slicks which I've never done before. We've only had two compounds.

"It was all positive, but then in the blink of an eye it was all over really, but that's how it goes."

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PEREZ: FIGHTING FOR THE F1 TITLE WILL KEEP MY DREAM ALIVE

Sergio Perez, riding a wave of good form, is still not willing to pledge his future beyond 2016 to Force India and is adamant he wants to achieve his Formula 1 world champion dream.

The team’s supremo Vijay Mallya made a rare paddock appearance at Silverstone last weekend where he insisted that the Mexican driver and his teammate Nico Hulkenberg are staying put for 2017.

Mallya was responding to reports that Perez might be signed by Ferrari, who in fact are sticking with Kimi Raikkonen for at least another year.

But Perez, 26, has said in an interview with Auto Motor und Sport that he is still in a “decisive” moment in his career.

“I knew before the season that it was an important year for me. A year that can decide my future,” said Perez. “I am 26, so I’m not the youngest anymore.”

“If I’m not fighting to be world champion in the next few years, I would feel that my big dream will have failed. So it’s important for me.”

Asked if he needs to put that dream back on track as early as 2017, Perez answered: “There are so many good drivers and so few good cockpits. So I know that it’s not only in my hands. I can only do my best.”

When asked if he has set a deadline to decide his future for 2017, Perez said: “I believe by the summer break I will have a better idea of what possibilities there are. And the break gives me time to think about it.”

Perez also defended his current teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who has struggled to look as good as the Mexican this year, “I don’t want to criticise any of my teammates. Nico is the best teammate I have ever had in my career.”

“He is very complete and has virtually no weaknesses. Sometimes when I think I have done the best job I can, I have to admit it’s not enough to beat Nico. That has never happened to me before with any other teammate,” added Perez.

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VILLENEUVE: MOST FORMULA 1 DRIVERS ARE STILL BABIES

Two former grand prix winners are leading the criticism of Formula 1’s new tendency to start any wet race behind the safety car, with outspoken Jacques Villeneuve labeling the current batch of drivers as babies.

The issue has arisen after the British grand prix, where spectators last Sunday were deprived of a normal start from the grid following a pre-race rain shower.

“If it suddenly rains on the highway, a normal driver doesn’t stop driving,” former Ferrari and McLaren driver Gerhard Berger told Auto Bild. “He simply adapts to the situation.”

However, whilst arguing that the Silverstone safety car period went on for too long, many drivers actually back F1’s new approach to wet races.

“What do you expect?” 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve said. “Most of them are still babies. If we want to excite the fans of tomorrow, we need heroes. Idols they can look up to and want to copy.”

“But what they see today are drivers who earn millions but are cowards hiding behind a safety car. What makes a grand prix driver so special is no longer coming through,” Villeneuve added.

The French Canadian also slammed that FIA stewards’ post-race decision to penalise Nico Rosberg for the radio infraction, dropping him from second to third.

“The formula one governing body would annul the result of a football match because a corner flag is found to be five millimetres higher than the rest,” he joked.

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GROSJEAN OPPOSED TO HALO DEVICE

Even the sad memory of his friend Jules Bianchi does not mean Romain Grosjean backs the proposed F1 Halop cockpit saefty device.

Also French, Haas driver Grosjean says he paid his respects ahead of the Monaco grand prix in May.

“I went to his grave and I am also in constant contact with his father Philippe,” he told Laola1, referring to the death last year of Manor racer Bianchi.

Grosjean said the Bianchi family is “doing well under the circumstances”and added, “I have two children and I don’t even want to imagine losing one of them.”

The FIA is moving to ramp up safety even more in the wake of the Bianchi fatality, apparently determined to introduce the cockpit protection concept called Halo.

But Red Bull, Force India and Haas have revealed their opposition, and Grosjean agrees.

“It’s a dangerous sport,” he said, “but it’s very safe in the circumstances where sometimes we can do 370kph on a street circuit and mostly walk away from accidents.

“As drivers we certainly do not want safety to stop improving, but we also cannot delete the DNA of Formula 1,” Grosjean added.

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Arrivabene: No more fooling around

Trying to turn their season around, Ferrari boss Maurizio Arrivabene has claimed that the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix could be a turning point for them this year.

The Scuderia have been plagued with questionable strategic calls and reliability issues throughout the season, while Mercedes continue to extend their lead on the Constructors' Championship table.

The Italian admitted that after the race at the Hungaroring they will know what the distance is in terms of performance between them and the Silver Arrows but said that they are determined not to fail.

"After Hungary we cannot fool around anymore," said Arrivabene.

"After that [race], we will understand what chances there are and where we are – and I believe that we cannot fail.

"Earlier in the season we had some problems related to certain components of the power unit, and these were sorted to the point that today our strong point is the engine.

"Now we need to work on reliability and other areas such as the aerodynamics."

He also added that despite Red Bull outscoring them in recent races their focus is still on Mercedes.

"I believe that the progress Red Bull has made is good for F1, because they have helped create more interest and a better show," he continued.

"But I still think that our goal is to counter the Mercedes and not Red Bull.

"At this stage of the season if we said that we give up it would be wrong. We need to be focused to solve problems, and to do so in tough times."

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Magnussen wants Renault to concentrate on 2017

Looking ahead to the future, Kevin Magnussen thinks that Renault should start concentrating on the development of its 2017 car.

Prior to the start of the season, Renault re-entered the sport as a team on the paddock after they bought Lotus. Magnussen then replaced Pastor Maldonado, with the Venezuelan departing the French manufacturer because of financial and political reasons.

The Dane has only managed to finish in the top ten once this season with a seventh place result in Russia. His teammate Jolyon Palmer still hasn’t managed to gain a point for the team as he has suffered a rather difficult season.

“It is a tough decision and one I am glad I don’t have to make,” he told Crash.net.

“It is a big decision whether you go for more points and positions in the championship this year or stop this year and go for next year.

“I want to win as soon as possible so it seems more logical to go for 2017 as there is a big rule change but then if you lose out on positions and prize money this year how will the sponsors look at that.

“So there are many things you have to look for.

“Not much we do this year can translate into next year. It is more for the team to understand what a driver needs to then design a car which is driveable with loads of downforce and power. It is back to basics next year.””

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Williams to run new floor in Hungarian GP

Williams plans to introduce a new floor at the Hungarian Grand Prix as it remains bullish aerodynamic updates can help it stave off the threat from Force India.

The Grove-based outfit has had two disappointing outings, and Force India is now just 19 points behind in the fight for fourth place.

But despite questions about just how much of a benefit new front wing designs introduced over the past fortnight have delivered, Williams is upbeat about its prospects.

Williams technical chief Pat Symonds said: "I respect Force India, they're a good team, but I'm confident we'll retain fourth place.

"We've got to bring performance to the car and we've got to use the car well, and we've got new parts still coming to the car.

"Force India have made some good aero steps in Barcelona and we probably haven't kept up with that. But we've now got to bring our new parts along. We've got a new floor in Hungary, which is quite good."

Better understanding

Williams focused on evaluating new aerodynamic parts at the Silverstone test this week, but Valtteri Bottas admitted progress had not been as great as it may have hoped.

"We've made gains but at the moment we struggle a little bit to put it directly into downforce and laptime," he said.

"But we've found something which also could benefit us not maybe in the near future, but later on."

Tyre knowledge

One of the issues that has swung Williams' performances in recent races has been tyre management – with it having a huge impact on their pace.

The team is trying to get to the bottom of whether its fluctuations in form are down to temperature variations or set-up.

When asked if mastering the tyres was the key to a better second half to 2016, Symonds said: "It probably is. We need raw performance as well so we need to get the aero up a bit, but it is to get on top of the tyres."

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NEWEY: RENAULT POWER UNIT CAN CLOSE IN ON MERCEDES

Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey is upbeat about the progress Renault are making with their power unit and believes that they could soon be a true match for Mercedes if they continue the upwardly mobile progress of late.

The French manufacturer was caught on the wrong foot when the new turbo era dawned in 2014, they made little if any progress in 2015, a fact which Red Bull made very public. A divorce between the long time partners seemed inevitable.

But over the winter peace ensued and a TAG-Heuer branded Renault was bolted onto the back of the Red Bull F1 challengers for 2016.

Fast forward several races and Red Bull have already won a race, with Max Verstappen winning in Spain. Now they are best of the rest, taking the fight to Mercedes on occasions and appearing to have closed the gap to the dominant team, while leap frogging Ferrari in the F1 pecking order.

Newey told ESPN, “I think it’s fairly well recorded that at the start of last season there was a frustrating time when Renault if anything, frankly, were going backwards rather than forwards.”

“But they seem to have really gone away, understood their problems and made really good progress over the last winter and again with the upgrade that we had for Monaco. If they can keep that ramp going then we can really start to close in, power unit wise, on Mercedes.”

The ace designer gives credit to Renault’s hand in their victory in Barcelona, “It’s obviously good to have won a race again this year.”

“Monaco was frustrating because we mucked that up ourselves, but to be back running at least somewhere near the front is a reward to not only all the hard work that’s gone on at Red Bull, but also all the hard work Renault has put in over the last 12 months,” added Newey.

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NEWEY: NEW RULES POSE A LOT OF CHALLENGES

Red Bull ace Formula 1 designer Adrian Newey says the key to unlocking performance from the new rules, set to come into effect in 2017, will be in the smaller details.

Next year’s new aerodynamic regulations aim to make F1 cars faster and better looking. This has inspired Newey to spend much more time on the project than he did with last year’s car, thus he has had a big hand in the concept and design of Red Bull’s 2017 challenger.

Newey said of the new rules, “It’s a very different set of aerodynamic regulations and it poses a lot of challenges. When you first look at them, the changes appear relatively small. Although the tyres are wider, the inside shoulder is in roughly the same place.”

“Once you get into the details then it’s actually hugely different and throwing up a lot of challenges, and with challenges come opportunities.”

The sport’s most successful designer believes there will be those in the paddock that get their sums right and others that will not, which could widen the gap between the front runners and the back of the grid.

“I think it’s inevitable that the lap time spread across the grid will be bigger than it has been this year,” explained Newey.

“Some people will come up with better aerodynamic solutions to this set of regulations than others, but whether that simply means one team dominates or whether some teams will be good a certain circuits and not so good at others, it is too early to tell.”

Asked if the 2017 regulations provided him personally with inspiration and motivation, he replied, “The regulations we have been working to up until the end of this year obviously came in for the 2009 season, and while there have been some relatively small changes over the years, they have been exactly that.”

“The cars have all evolved quite heavily over several seasons to one set of regulations, to the point of course that now when you look at the cars they all look pretty similar to each other. I guess it’s a form of flattery to us that if you look at the original 2009 car, there has been a convergence towards that car, but that of course is all history now,” mused Newey.

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ARRIVABENE EXIT STILL A TALKING POINT IN ITALY

A media insider who is famously close to Ferrari has played down reports Maurizio Arrivabene could lose his job, but admits he does not have the inside line to the team president Sergio Marchionne.

Sections of the infamously tough Italian press have declared that the Maranello marque is once again in “crisis”, after starting the year hot on Mercedes’ heels but now having fallen behind Red Bull.

Not only that, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone said in a recent interview that Ferrari “has become very Italian again”, declaring that the team needs Marchionne to get involved “seven days a week, 24 hours a day”.

“There is nothing wrong with Maurizio at all,” he told F1’s official website, “but maybe his character is a bit different to Sergio – which it is.”

Responding to the speculation, F1 blogger Leo Turrini – who almost always has his finger right on the pulse on all Ferrari matters – played down suggestions Arrivabene could go.

“As far as I know, Sergio Marchionne has no intention of getting rid of Maurizio Arrivabene,” he wrote. “But I’m not intimately close to the president so time will tell.”

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VANDOORNE: I HAVE SIMILAR SPEED TO ALONSO AND BUTTON

One of the common denominators among the young up-and-coming crop of drivers knocking on the door of Formula 1 is that none lack confidence, Stoffel Vandoorne is probably the most confident of all and believes he can match both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso on track.

The Belgian was on duty for McLaren at Silverstone earlier this week, having made his debut for injured Alonso in Bahrain where he shone on his way to scoring the team’s first points of the season.

Asked by media at Silverstone if he was capable of delivering technical feedback, Vandoorne replied, “Yes I see no reason why not. I’ve driven an F1 grand prix, quite a few days in an F1 car now and proven I have similar speed to [Alonso and Button].”

Vandoorne has ramped up his bid to get a seat on the 2017 grid, making it quite clear that if he does not get the drive with McLaren (in place of Button) he has other options to explore.

Paddock information suggests that he is high on the Renault ‘shopping’ list to replace under-performing Jolyon Palmer.

Vandoorne said as much during the Q&A with reporters,”The main goal is to be in F1 next year, that hasn’t changed, I am contracted to McLaren and I want to be with this team next year. I’ve spent a lot of time with the team and engineers and feel we’ve been through a perfect preparation.”

“There is not much more I can really do to get the drive now. I would love to race for this team but I’ve always said if for some reason it doesn’t become possible I am positive that there are other options available.”

Vandoorne is currently campaigning in the Japanese Super Formula, alongside his McLaren reserve driver commitments and is adamant that there are interested parties in the F1 paddock.

“I think everybody is interested in what I am doing. This year I see as a preparation year for next year and my main focus is still to get an F1 drive next year. I will focus on my role as the reserve driver but having a racing programme alongside that is a good benefit to stay race fit and sharp in any case I need to jump in the car,” added Vandoorne.

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PIRELLI WANTS 2017 F1 TESTING TO BE IN MIDDLE EAST 

Formula 1’s sole tyre supplier Pirelli wants pre-season testing to be carried out in the Middle East next February, rather than at the usual Spanish tracks, to be sure of better weather.

“We would prefer to go somewhere like Bahrain or Abu Dhabi,” Pirelli’s motorsport head Paul Hembery told the official F1 website.

“The temperatures will be representative and we know the tracks very well. We definitely would want to go to representative tracks.”

Pre-season testing, along with the launches of the new cars, has been carried out at Spain’s Barcelona, Valencia and Jerez tracks in recent years to help teams cut costs and make logistics easier. All the teams are based in Europe.

The early races of the season — Australia, Bahrain and China on the current calendar — are run in higher temperatures than found in Spain, where rain and chilly weather is not unusual at that time of the year.

Testing next year is more important than ever with significant rule changes coming in and Pirelli, who have started trying out 2017 compounds already, having to make wider tyres for cars designed to go substantially quicker.

“If we have any surprises, if the cars then are very different to what we had envisioned, then we will have to react to that,” said Hembery.

“Probably not for the first race, but at least when we have some really good winter testing we should know in advance how it is likely going to be – what changes are needed.”