Towards the end of the 2016 British Grand Prix Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes W07 suffered a failure in his transmission. The exact nature of this failure is not yet clear but initially saw the car stick in 7th gear (like all 2016 F1 cars the W07 has an 8 speed ‘box), then Rosberg was able to get out of 7th and radioed in to his team to report the issue. After some feedback from the pitwall, Rosberg was able to continue in the race and crossed the line in second position. But even before the race had ended the radio communications were under investigation by the race stewards. Ultimately this cost the Finnish/German/Monegasque a ten second penalty and with it his second position finish in the race.
At the start of the 2016 season the FIA clamped down on pit to car radio as it was felt that the drivers were getting far too much assistance from the engineers on the pit wall. ?What we?re trying to do is to make sure the driver is driving the car on his own, that he?s not being told how to drive the car. Simple as that, really? the FIA’s Charlie Whiting told the press at the start of the season. ?We heard many, many complaints from viewers who were a bit fed up of hearing the continual engineering assistance the driver was getting. That?s fundamentally what we want to cut out. But the driver is allowed to say anything he wants – there?s no restrictions in what he says; it?s what the team can say to him. You?ll still get what I would call the juicy content R...