For weeks, we have been anticipating our chance to see Robert Kubica back in a current Formula One car. We got that chance today, when Kubica completed 142 laps of the Hungaroring between the morning and afternoon test sessions, cheered on by an army of fans from the main grandstand. Half way through the day, Kubica met the requirements for an FIA Super Licence, passing the 300-kilometer mark on his 69th lap. His best time in the morning session was a 1:19.681, and in the afternoon, 1:18.572, gaining over a second throughout the course of the day's events.

To put that into context, the fastest race lap for a Renault was 1:21.589, set by Jolyon Palmer. Palmer's best qualifying lap was in Q2, when he put down a 1:18.415, and Nico Hülkenberg later pipped him in Q3 with a 1:17.468. This puts Kubica within two-tenths of Jolyon Palmer after less than a full day of testing, whereas Palmer has practiced, qualified, and raced in the R.S.17 for a full eleven race weekends. The temperature may be in part to blame for the delta, with peak temperatures during the race weekend not exceeding 33º C, whereas today's temperatures reached as high as 36º C.

Furthermore, Phillip Horton of GPUpdate, who was present at the test today, describes Kubica's performance as quick and smooth, but reserved, with minimal use of curbs. He states that he saw no obvious faults in the way Kubica handles the physically demanding 2017 cars.

As Kubica mentioned in an interview yesterday, his pace is one of the less important factors to examine after today's testing. Never mind the fact that the general public knows nothing of the factors differing between today's test sessions and the real qualifying and race sessions, such as fuel load, tire compound, track temperature, and setup— this test's first priority was probably gauging whether or not Kubica could overcome his injuries and withstand long runs in a current Formula One car. Not only has he proven himself capable of enduring a full race weekend (condensed to one day, no less,) but he has also shown the ability to match Jolyon Palmer from right out of the gate.

As of the end of the test, no decisions have yet been made regarding Kubica's potential comeback. When asked by Crash if Kubica is yet an option for 2018, Alain Prost replied, "we’ve said that we have a decision for F1 next year, not next week. [...] He has recovered, for sure. I wish that he can come back to Formula 1 if possible.”

Kubica too is unsure what this test means for his future in Formula One. "It has been an incredible journey to this point, where I have answered many questions to myself," said Kubica, "it’s too early to say what the next step might be."

We are left with some positives to reflect on. Robert Kubica has proven his injured right arm does not stand between him and driving modern Formula One cars at race pace, for race distance. With a fraction as much practice, he is nipping at the heels of Jolyon Palmer. Nothing is set in stone, but the chisel and hammer are out.

Formula 1 could introduce standard parts to address the huge spending disparity across the grid, CEO Chase Carey has confirmed.

The budgets of F1 teams vary wildly, with Ferrari spending an estimated £330million last year as the likes of Force India and Sauber spent £90m and £95m respectively.

McLaren executive director Zak Brown has backed a budget cap in the past, and also claimed "there are some that think we should standardise some parts".

Carey has now confirmed that standard parts is an option F1 has considered to cut costs, as he reiterated Liberty's sporting chief Ross Brawn's claim that technology should not be "dumbed down".

"There are many paths to get there, whether it's cost caps, or other ways to address key components of the car," said Carey.

"We're not looking to standardise the car - we think it is very important to continue to have a sport that is competition married to state of the art technologies.

"We're not looking to dumb the cars down, but I think we can standardise components of it.

"We are certainly looking for ways to address what some of the teams in particular spend.

"That would improve the overall economics of the business and enable everybody in it to benefit, as well as improving the competition."

It is not known what F1 would seek to standardise, although Brown suggested it should be parts that "don't improve the show and the fans don't recognise the difference", like suspension components.

Carey has also revealed "preliminary meetings" have been held with teams regarding cost cutting, although the objective was not to make everybody's budget the same.

"One of the challenges we have today is there are a handful of teams that clearly spend at a level that's much different from the others, and you can see the results on the track," said Carey.

"So if we can bring the costs into an area where they are more comparable - not equal - to each other, it can enhance competition and would make the economics of the business much better.

"We've begun that process with the teams, so we've had some preliminary meetings.

"There are some big components to it, like addressing the engine, which is probably the most complicated part of the car as a whole.

"It is certainly our goal to address those costs, and we think the sport will on many levels benefit from that."

While most critics focus on the aesthetics, the added weight of the "Halo" cockpit safety device might actually have a more significant impact on Formula 1.

The fact the carbon-titanium cockpit protection system will be mandatory on all cars next year has sparked a furious debate. And while some rail against the questionable aesthetics of the addition to the traditional open cockpit, another major consideration is the 10-plus kilograms (approximately 22 pounds) that Halo weighs.

Lewis Hamilton said: "You cannot ignore Halo if it improves safety by 17 percent. It just doesn't look good, and the extra weight isn't good either."

Carlos Sainz added: "We should not have to be as slim as cyclists just because of the cars."

F1 legend Niki Lauda even thinks Halo "destroys the DNA" of Formula 1, but Valtteri Bottas does not quite agree with his Mercedes boss.

"I don't think Halo will hurt Formula 1," Bottas told Auto Bild. "It is a safety improvement, like so many others in the history of the sport, which is good for us drivers. The only drawback is the extra weight because the heavier the cars are, the less exciting they are."

Formula 1 needs more teams like former backmarker Minardi because there are currently too few opportunities for young drivers to break through, according to Haas team principal Gunther Steiner.

Minardi raced in F1 for 21 years from 1985 and was renowned for giving young talented drivers a chance with the likes of Fernando Alonso, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jarno Trulli and Mark Webber all getting their start in F1 with the team.

With the departure of HRT, Caterham and Manor, which was responsible for giving Mercedes juniors Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon debuts last year, F1 is lacking a back-of-the-grid entry point like Minardi offered.

As a result, Ferrari is in talks to make Sauber its junior team to become a proving ground for its youngsters, including Charles Leclerc and Antonio Giovinazzi, to gather race experience in F1.

"The difficulty for young drivers is they need to be in the right time at the right place," said Steiner.

"There is nothing else you can do for it, at the moment you cannot even buy a cockpit.

"When Minardi was around, Minardi was maybe happy to be last, that was their duty to bring drivers up.

"Maybe they were not happy to be last but they could live with it because that was their business model: to develop drivers, that's a good business model.

"It's like when [Daniel] Ricciardo drove the HRT [in 2011], you knew he was not going to do anything but it gave him experience and that's not there anymore.

"It's maybe a good thing we don't have these teams [running at the back], [but] maybe it's a bad thing too."

Steiner says the big teams are reluctant to run young drivers without previous F1 experience, particularly given the big step between F2 and the new generation of F1 cars.

"I think they [Leclerc and Giovinazzi] are both good guys, with very good potential," said Steiner.

"Between Ferrari and Mercedes, the next good guys will come out of one of them.

"[But] how they get into a seat is difficult, Formula 1 in that respect is very difficult.

"F2 to F1, it's a different ball game, it's such a big gap. You need a little bit of learning.

"To put Charles or Antonio straight away in a Ferrari, it's a big risk.

"It can go well, but there are bigger chances it goes wrong, because the expectations are so high.

"The sport is so complex, you make mistakes when you're young because you don't have experience. You cannot buy experience - you need time."

Formula 1 could adopt a driverless safety car in the future as part of an effort to promote autonomous technology, the FIA has revealed.

Motorsport's governing body is determined to ensure that drivers remain a key element of F1's attraction, but have discussed how it could promote driverless cars through other elements of a grand prix weekend.

Marcin Budkowski, the head of the FIA's F1 technical department, has suggested that a driverless safety car would be a good way of proving automotive advances without detracting from the show.

"Let me give you an example, but it is not the only one: we have spoken about an unmanned safety car," Budkowski told Autosport.

"It would promote a technology about which there is a bit of scepticism and, instead, it could be shown that it works.

"The safety car driver would no longer be essential, because it would leave the controls to the computer.

"But we must be aware of the attraction of [F1] race cars without drivers: the engineers would love it, but not the fans."

Although Budkowski is sceptical about potential fan interest in a driverless F1, he does think that other series like Roborace do have a role to play in promoting autonomous developments.

Roborace, the world's first competition for driverless cars, was announced last year as part of a tie-up with electric series Formula E.

"I see it [Roborace] as a very interesting thing, which pushes things in one direction," said Budkowski.

"But can this idea of having no F1 driver captivate millions around the world? Frankly I have doubts.

"However, using the motorsport platform to promote to the public new technologies, like an unmanned safety car, or events like Roborace, can be fantastic in exploring the possibility of new solutions."

Budkowski was recruited to the FIA, after years working for McLaren and Ferrari, to help formulate plans for adapting grand prix racing to better suit future technologies.

"The FIA was starting a project on connected autonomous vehicles, and it wanted to understand how it should be placed in front of these new technologies," added Budkowski.

"The idea was to understand what will change with autonomous driving in the automotive world, and what influences it would have on the individual national federations.

"There were also implications in defining the business model, not to mention how to use the new technologies in motorsport to promote them - because solutions will completely change the world of cars and safety.

"Autonomous driving will have a very strong impact on safety and we know how the FIA and [president] Jean Todt are engaged in the Action for Road Safety campaign."

Honda has changed the way it evaluates developments for its Formula 1 engine, according to its project leader Yusuke Hasegawa.

The Japanese manufacturer has had a frustrating start to its third season in F1, with poor reliability and a lack of power threatening its future with McLaren.

Last month, Hasegawa said Honda had struggled with correlation between the dyno and the track but now says it has changed its approach with less reliance on dyno results to prove a specification.

"We are changing our way of development," he told Autosport. "We're not too much insisting on mono-cylinder [dyno] development.

"We can check factors or elements or many concepts with the mono-cylinder [block] but we now understand we need to check with the V6 to finalise our specification.

"So we are no longer relying too much on the mono-cylinder results.

"As a reference, the mono cylinder test is important but to find the performance, we need to check the V6 results."

The MGU-H has been a particular problem for Honda this season, with Japanese manufacturer encountering a series of failures.

Following a reliability update a Silverstone, Hasegawa feels Honda may have finally got on top of the issue.

"The MGU-H failure took a very long time to solve," said Hasegawa.

"We had many small issues in the engine - and that area is difficult to understand on the dyno.

"We are about to solve that [MGU-H] issue, we just need to confirm on the circuit.

"But the MGU-H specification we have introduced includes solutions for the problem so I believe it's OK."

Talks about Toro Rosso taking on Honda power for 2018 have fallen through, according to reports in the Italian press.

Prior to the summer break, rumours were rife that the junior Red Bull-owned team could take over from Sauber as a Honda 'customer' for 2018.

"After several weeks, the negotiations have stopped for financial reasons," the Italian source Autosprint claimed.

"It is no mystery that to make the Japanese power unit attractive, it would be about the financial contribution that a manufacturer like Honda could bring."

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera agreed that Toro Rosso has said 'no' to Honda.

"It (the Toro Rosso deal) would also have been a test-bench for a possible change of direction for Red Bull as well, but now everything has collapsed," it said.

"It seems that Red Bull asked for too much money.

"Now, if McLaren leaves, Honda will be automatically out of formula one."

Renault chassis technical director Nick Chester is expecting debate over how Formula 1 teams fit their own fairings to minimise the aerodynamic implications of the halo cockpit protection device.

The halo will be introduced in 2018, despite opposition from nine of the 10 F1 teams, and though it will be a standardised part teams have a degree of freedom through the use of fairings.

FIA F1 race director Charlie Whiting has said teams are allowed "non-structural fairings around the upper part, which can be no more than 20mm from the main structure".


Chester says the halo will have "very little" impact on aerodynamics and the relative freedom with fairings will help minimise that.

"There's a bit of wake into the airbox which is slightly painful, but the regulations allow a fairing which will help," Chester told Autosport.

"I'm sure that'll get debated into how much we can do with the fairings.

"We'll be allowed a little bit of fairing, so we'll fair the front junction in, fair the top edge around the driver's head a bit.

"We can't change too much otherwise we'll be changing loading so it's fairly fixed."

Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer recently said the timing of the late decision to give the go-ahead for the halo to be introduced next season could mean teams miss the start of 2018 testing.

Chester agreed that the timing had caused headaches.

"It knocks on big time to the chassis definition," said Chester.

"It's a little bit painful as we're right into that process of trying to finalise our chassis schemes and the loadings from it are quite big so it affects all the structure in the chassis. It has quite a big impact.

"Outside the chassis it won't have much of an effect on car performance, it's just the actual design of the chassis to take the loads which is difficult."

The first images of the updated version of the two-seater Formula 1 car for 2018 have been released.

F1 intends to have a pair of two-seater experience cars running at every event next year, having instigated a limited programme for 2017.

The project is overseen by former Minardi boss Paul Stoddart, with former Jordan, Renault and Toyota technical director Mike Gascoyne as its technical chief.

The uprated two-seater will still be based on the original 1998 Tyrrell 026 design and running gear, but will feature a more contemporary bodykit after its revision.

New tubs are also being built, and will feature upgrades including a less obtrusive roll hoop bulkhead, offering the passenger a better view.

"Paul obviously wants to update these cars to give them a more modern look, and there are some things that we've got to do from a reliability point of view," Gascoyne told Autosport, outlining his plan for the car's revamp.

"We're going to put a modern aero package on it, so a new front wing, bargeboards, and rear wing to reflect the current regulations.

"We're going to make two new chassis, because we want to incorporate changes to improve driver fit, and get bigger passengers in, and make them more comfortable and safer.

"Also we can put dash displays in for the passengers, so they will be able to see where they are on the circuit."

Gascoyne stressed that the focus is on improving the experience for passengers.

"We can improve the view for the passenger - we can make that seat bulkhead quite a bit smaller," he said.

"Without compromising on safety, we can improve it in lots of areas.

"We don't need to take weight out of it or anything; what we're looking at doing is improving the experience for the passenger - what he can see, what displays are available to him, comfort."

The uprated two-seater will still be based on the original 1998 Tyrrell 026 design and running gear, but will feature a more contemporary bodykit after its revision.