Latest F1 news in brief

Haryanto needs a bigger check

Full season for Haryanto not assured – manager
Villeneuve slams F1 driver 'babies' over safety car
Candidates queue up for Palmer's seat
Grosjean mourns Bianchi but opposed to Halo
Perez to assess future in summer break
Bottas hails 'important' test for Williams
Arrivabene: Ferrari cannot fail in Hungary

Full season for Haryanto not assured – manager
(GMM) Rio Haryanto's run in formula one could now be coming to an end.

While there have been mixed reports over whether the Indonesian rookie will stay at Manor all season, the 23-year-old is in fact only signed up for the first 11 races of 2016.

That would take him onto to the checkered flag in Hungary next weekend.

"We don't know what will happen for the rest of the year, our initial agreement with Manor was for 11 races," Haryanto's manager Piers Hunnisett admitted to the Jakarta Globe this week.

"We are still working hard to find solutions to finance Rio with potential sponsors but nothing is confirmed yet," he added.

The newspaper said Haryanto needs to raise EUR 7 million in order to keep his seat until the season finale in November.

"The team are very happy with Rio's performance and we all hope Rio can make Indonesia proud and stay in F1 and for 2017," Hunnisett added.

Jacques Villeneuve

Villeneuve slams F1 driver 'babies' over safety car
(GMM) Two former grand prix winners are leading the criticism of F1's new tendency to start any wet race behind the safety car.

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 penalize 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 millimeters higher than the rest," he joked.

Jolyon Palmer needs a bigger check to keep his seat

Candidates queue up for Palmer's seat
(GMM) Jolyon Palmer may face a struggle to hang onto his Renault seat beyond 2016.

That's because the potential suitors are queuing at the door, including Stoffel Vandoorne and Esteban Ocon.

Belgian Vandoorne is actually under contract to McLaren but the British team has not decided whether or not to hang onto Jenson Button for 2017.

"I would love to drive for McLaren, but if this is not possible, I think there are other options," he is quoted by L'Equipe as having said at the Silverstone test this week.

Another potential candidate is French teenager Ocon, who was testing for Mercedes at Silverstone.

The youngster is already on loan to Renault, where boss Frederic Vasseur has admitted he is in the running.

"The bosses at Renault will decide what they want to do," he said this week.

When asked about the risk he might be unseated by one of Renault's options, Briton Palmer said: "Honestly, I don't worry about it.

"I'm only focused on what I have to do.

"I want to improve the car, because if I succeed, the chances increase that I can show more of what I am capable of. The other guys don't interest me," Palmer insisted.

Grosjean opposed to Halos

Grosjean mourns Bianchi but opposed to Halo
(GMM) Even the sad memory of his friend Jules Bianchi does not mean Romain Grosjean backs the proposed 'Halo' 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".

"I have two children and I don't even want to imagine losing one of them," he added.

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 one," Grosjean added.

Sergio Perez was hoping to take his Carlos Slim money to Ferrari, now he will likely give it to Force India again

Perez to assess future in summer break
(GMM) Sergio Perez is still not willing to pledge his future to Force India.

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 rumors 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 Germany's 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, who is riding a wave of podium-winning form.

"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 criticize any of my teammates," he said, "but 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."

Valtteri Bottas

Bottas hails 'important' test for Williams
Valtteri Bottas described his day of running in the Williams FW38 at Silverstone as "important" for 2017 as the outfit attempts to move back up the Formula 1 grid.

Williams finished third in the standings across the past two years but has regressed in 2016 and is now under pressure from Force India after a recent drop in performance.

Bottas completed 98 laps on Wednesday to finish sixth and the Finn is hopeful that the test results will reap dividends next season, as well as for upcoming races.

"We have some updates lined up for Hungary and Germany aero-wise already which have been planned for a long time," Bottas explained after his running.

"What we have done [in testing], in Hungary it's a different circuit, different temperatures, so I'm not sure we can get anything good from here for Budapest.

"Of course, we'll look at the data, and especially the long runs we did to try and use those things to improve our race pace, but aero-wise the stuff we did is more for next year.

"For Germany, Spa, some things from here can be thrown forward for those, because we could see these temperatures later in the year, at Spa, for example.

"Small steps at a time, there's still a long season to go. It was definitely an important test for us."

Bottas nonetheless conceded that Williams was still struggling to understand its car.

"We ran three [different front wings], all from this year, from the beginning and the very latest ones, and we found small differences," he commented.

"We honestly still struggle to see big differences as we would like to see.

"We were predicting bigger gains [from the changes], but at the moment we're struggling a little bit to put it directly into downforce and lap time."

Arrivabene had better be prepared for Ferrari to get beaten bad in Hungary

Arrivabene: Ferrari cannot fail in Hungary
Ferrari has admitted that the Hungarian Grand Prix will be a decisive race for the team in understanding if it has any chance of beating Mercedes this season.

The Maranello-based outfit is coming off the back of two difficult weekends where it has lost ground to Mercedes and finds itself under increased pressure from Red Bull.

For now, team principal Maurizio Arrivabene is defiant that the world title is not a lost cause, but he is aware that if it does not succeed at the Hungaroring then it may have to admit its hopes are over.

It comes after Vettel and Ferrari delivered a brilliant victory at the track 12 months ago, with the layout and temperature well suited to the team.

"After Hungary we cannot fool around any more," 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."

Focus still Mercedes

Although Red Bull has closed to within six points of Ferrari in the constructors' championship standings, Arrivabene says his team's focus remains on Mercedes ahead of it.

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

When asked directly if he still believed that Ferrari would win the championship, Arrivabene said: "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".

Gearbox focus

Arrivabene has also said that aerodynamic tweaks should be coming soon to help improve the balance issues that have hurt it over recent races.

"At this stage of the season, you cannot have revolutionary solutions," he said. "But it becomes a priority to solve the problems we have to improve the car balance, and in this there should be some updates."

But at the top of its list of priorities is understanding why it has suffered a spate of gearbox problems that have proved so costly for Vettel over the past two races.

"This race [the British GP] has highlighted the problems that are not only related to this track," he said. "They had already emerged in Barcelona and in Baku, but here were more visible.

"We have to work fast, but there are clear gaps. Apart from the gearbox problem that needs thorough analysis to figure out if it's a design problem or materials. I'll bet on the latter. " GPtoday