Verstappen says F1 rule changes 'a tickle'

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'I love the competition'

The debate about this year's rules has widened out into what might be the ideal rule-set for the future.

Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, the son of team owner Lawrence Stroll, said the new rules were "fundamentally just so flawed", adding: "We're still far away from proper F1 cars, and pushing flat-out without thinking about batteries."

Two years ago, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem was pushing for a return to V8 or V10 naturally aspirated engines, and he is known to still be keen on the idea.

However, at the time, the engine manufacturers killed his plan.

And Russell explained that the decision was more complicated than it appears on the surface.

The Mercedes driver said: "There's a lot of talk about going back to a V8. That would obviously be pretty cool, the sustainable fuel topic is a fantastic one, and I think would be great for Formula 1. We need to find ways to reduce the cars even more, because [reducing] the weight of the cars has been a positive impact in terms of the racing and the drivability, being able to fight close with one another.

"If you look at the 'glory days' of Formula 1 20 years ago where everyone says they were the best cars ever - and I still agree they were probably the coolest cars we ever saw in Formula 1 in the early 2000s - there was no overtaking at all. So it's something we need to remember and we need to think about for the next time."

Concerns about potential wet race

Drivers have expressed concerns about safety in the event of predicted wet and thundery weather for race day on Sunday.

F1 and the FIA are keeping an eye on the weather forecast but no serious discussions have yet been held about changing the schedule, even if it always remains open as a possibility.

Among the rule changes was one aimed at addressing concerns about speed differentials in the wet by reducing maximum levels of electrical deployment.

But drivers retain concerns about closing speeds with the reduced visibility inherent in the rain.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc said: "The weird thing about these cars in the wet is that you might end up going much faster at the end of the straight in wet conditions than you do on the dry conditions because you don't have that engine cut because you're not using as much energy.

"You can find yourself in tricky situations, especially if drivers are driving with different power unit strategies. You've got very little visibility. So that's the trickiness of these rules and something that we need to get to understand a way out of that. Because in the wet, we are really passengers.

"In the rain, it's not about being brave or not. You stay flat out and you hope that no cars in front of you are slower than you and you just assume they are on the same speed as you.

"That was kind of easy to assume that in the past years. Now it's not the case any more. So we'll go flat out and let's see how it goes. So it's not such a nice feeling. This is something we need to still work a way around."