F1 radio restrictions "ridiculous", "negligent" - Symonds

F1 teams have pushed recently to try to ease the clampdown on what they can tell drivers, in the wake of claims some were unable to issue warnings about failing brakes at the Austrian Grand Prix.

But rather than give up on the push to limit driver help, the FIA made it clear ahead of the British GP that it was getting tougher, and that breaches of the rules would now be reported to stewards.

That opened the way for the investigation that cost Nico Rosberg his second place after receiving assistance to cure a gearbox problem. Mercedes has subsequently appealed.

Symonds does not like where things are right now, and is especially unhappy that the limits left the way open for Sergio Perez to suffer a crash as a result of brake failure at the Red Bull Ring.

"On the pitwall, we know our rules pretty well - and normally when something happens, we know what to do," he explained. "With this, every single race, there's a debate goes on in the pitlane, 'oh, we shouldn't do this, what are we going to do?'

"Poor old Perez in Austria, how ridiculous. You're going to do tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage to the car, because you can't tell a guy his brakes are about to fail? It's negligent. It's not just wrong, it's negligent."

Symonds said that if Williams had found itself in the situation Force India was in, then it would have elected to warn the driver and take the penalty rather than risk something worse happening.

"We debated the very situation Perez found himself in, we said 'if that's the case, we'll tell the driver to stop, we don't care about a penalty, we're not going to risk injuring a driver'," he said.

Rules rethink

Symonds is not the only team figure who does not like the radio rules.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner, whose driver Max Verstappen benefited from Rosberg's penalty, thinks that the time has come for a proper think of what the sport should be trying to achieve.

"The cars are technically very complex and you can understand why Mercedes would want to give that message to keep their driver running," he said.

"Now it is a team sport at the end of the day, and the cars are a lot more complicated than they were four years ago – for the drivers to work out what they should or shouldn't be doing.

"Today the rules are what the rules are, and the question is, did Nico and the team breach those rules? And therefore what is the punishment? The question is, are these rules right for F1 and that is a different question."

Symonds added: "I don't like it. To me, it's a team sport - we should work together. If people really do object to us coaching the drivers, I can live with that. But helping them manage the systems? I really don't think that's a big problem. Where do we draw the line?

"It is a team sport, if a driver has to drive the car alone and unaided, should he change his own tyres? Imagine that - pitstop, climb out, change the tyres, back in. Where do you draw the line? And where they've drawn the line, in my opinion, is hardly a good place."

Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov