Mercedes needs to consider favouring Lewis Hamilton over Valtteri Bottas in the Formula 1 title race soon or it risks losing the drivers' championship, says 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

Hamilton closed the gap to F1 title rival Sebastian Vettel to just seven points with victory in the Belgian Grand Prix, while Bottas finished fifth and is 34 further adrift.

Ferrari already appears to be backing Vettel over Kimi Raikkonen in its pursuit of a first drivers' championship since the latter triumphed in 2007 and first constructors' title since 2008.

"Bottas is not on Lewis's level," Villeneuve told Autosport.

"He's not in the same game, he's not in the same group, it's obvious now."

When asked if it was time for Mercedes to consider favouring Hamilton, the Canadian said: "Yes, but Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team boss] doesn't want to do it.

"He's protecting Bottas right now, he's the one who put Bottas there.

"Bottas is his driver, even though he says he isn't the manager anymore, it's still his driver.

"He is protecting him because he still needs to get him a contract for next year.

"Yes [it is risking the title]. They have already [lost] the points from [Hungary, when Hamilton gave back a position to Bottas as part of a team arrangement], so they need to consider it."

Bottas said at Spa he understood Mercedes would need to back one driver at some stage, but felt it was still too early for the team to do so.

"For sure at some point I understand if the team wants to really go for the championship, really make sure that at least one of the guys wins it," he said.

"But it's a bit early.

"There's still eight races to go, that's a big amount of points."

Carlos Sainz Jr believes there is a risk of Formula 1 drivers looking like "idiots" if teams attempt slipstreaming tactics during this weekend's Italian Grand Prix.

The combination of Monza's long straights plus the high drag produced by F1's 2017 cars means time could be gained if team-mates provide each other with a tow in qualifying.

McLaren employed that tactic at Spa when Stoffel Vandoorne - who was due to start the Belgian Grand Prix from the back of the grid - assisted Fernando Alonso in the team's attempts to get through to Q3.

Alonso, who could incur penalties at Monza this weekend, suggested he could return the favour to his team-mate in Italian Grand Prix qualifying this weekend.

But Toro Rosso driver Sainz said McLaren's slipstreaming strategy in Belgium constituted a "special situation", and was skeptical about how widespread that tactic would be among other teams at Monza.

"It is something that can be a bit of a curveball sometimes if you don't do it perfectly," said Sainz during an event for Toro Rosso sponsor Acronis ahead of the Italian GP.

"I think McLaren was a very special situation, because one of the drivers was taking a massive penalty, and he was going to start last.

"So they really went for it because it made sense.

"For others, you can either be a hero or an idiot if you don't do it properly. So it is something very, very tricky to put together."

Toro Rosso conceded that the recent Spa round and visit to Monza were likely to cause it problems, but Sainz's team-mate Daniil Kvyat said he had not given up on a good result.

"It's not an easy track for us here. It's totally straightline [speed dependent] here," he said.

"I like the track but we are not the fastest in a straight line, so it is probably about finding the right compromise in downforce and how fast you can go in the corners or a straight line.

"We can still fight for good positions here if you get everything right on strategy."

Kvyat added he felt engine supplier Renault had not made as much developmental progress this year compared to Mercedes and Ferrari.

"This year's Renault has been quite OK in the beginning, but to be honest there is some lack of development compared to Mercedes and Ferrari," he said.

"If we are honest, there is still something missing.

"I think they will always keep working and if they find something, they will find something quite big. But it hasn't happened so far."

Ross Brawn says Formula 1 chiefs are pushing for an end to grid penalties in grand prix racing because the system has got out of control.

Ever since F1 moved towards long-life components - including engines and gearboxes that must last a set number of races - drivers who use too many components have received grid demotions.

But situations such as Stoffel Vandoorne's 65-place grid penalty at Spa have left Brawn adamant a better solution must be found.

"I hate the fact that we're having to affect the racing because of the technical issues," Brawn told Autosport.

"I know you can say if a car breaks down in a race that's a technical issue and you've affected the race, but I think the fans understand that.

"For a fan to stomach that his hero is on the back of the grid because he had to change the engine, that's not great sport.

"We've got to find a solution to that, either through a different form of penalty or to remove the penalty altogether and just live with the problem that it was trying to fix."

Brawn said discussions with the FIA had begun and hopes for changes by the time new engine regulations are introduced in 2021 at the very latest.

"Maybe we'll be able to implement a better solution before then, because it's a massively unpopular aspect of Formula 1 at the moment," he added.

"One of the things that has been suggested is loss of constructors' points.

"There could be other more discrete penalties.

"We used to have the token system for the engine, and that wasn't bad actually. It got a little bit complicated, but you could remove the tokens for a while.

"It needs a lateral think. The grid penalties are very unpopular, and we should be finding a better solution."

Dropping the DRS overtaking aid is another of Brawn's ambitions.

"It's a compromise," said Brawn. "What we should do is find a better solution.

"What we really want is the cars to be able to slipstream one another properly and overtake.

"So for me the solution, which we've now started a programme on, is to design the cars, so that they can race each other in close proximity.

"A current Formula 1 car is totally optimised around running by itself.

"The teams, when they go in the windtunnel and create their CFD programmes to develop the car, it's all done in isolation. So when you put another car around it, the car doesn't work as well.

"What we are working on is generating the capacity to look at cars that are racing each other in close proximity, and what sort of designs we need to enable that to happen.

"When we do that, which is our ambition for 2021, then we will have cars that don't need DRS."

FIA president Jean Todt says he has not had any offers he deems serious from interested parties wishing to enter new Formula 1 teams.

Earlier this year, Zoran Stefanovic revealed plans for a second attempt to enter a team, having previously tried to join the grid as Stefan GP.

There are believed to several parties, including a group from China, that are evaluating entering F1.

But though Todt has had contact from interested candidates, he has seen nothing serious enough to warrant the FIA opening a tender for an additional slot on the grid.

"Not something I will comment on as a very serious offer," said Todt when asked if he had had any reasonable offers.

"When we will see there is some serious offer [we will open a tender] - as we did when Haas came to Formula 1, we understood there was some serious interest so we created a tender."

Previously, F1 had a maximum 26-car grid capacity but has not featured that many cars in its field since the middle of the 1995 season.

Todt said the current agreement is to have a grid of 24 cars but with a "never say never" approach about welcoming a 13th team if the situation presents itself.

"At the moment, we have 10 teams competing in F1," said Todt, who was speaking at an FIA Action for Road Safety press conference at Monza.

"We have a good championship.

"The maximum number of teams we would accept is 12 so I'm happy to listen to any good proposals.

"We are working to have an even better championship, but the agreements we have is for a maximum for 12 teams."

Given there are only five-and-a-half months left until pre-season testing for the 2018 season begins, any potential new team eyeing F1 would be looking at an entry for '19 at the earliest.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner plans a fresh push to get Formula 1's engine limit rules scrapped for 2018 following the Italian Grand Prix grid penalty farce.

Nine drivers - nearly half the F1 field - were handed grid penalties for either engine or gearbox changes at Monza.

Next year the rules are due to get even tougher, with each driver restricted to just three engines per season.

Earlier this year, Horner tried to get F1's Strategy Group to abandon that plan and keep the current four engine limit in place, but did not get enough support.

Following the Monza situation, Horner says he will be raise the matter again.

"I think this engine has done nothing positive for Formula 1 since it was introduced," said Horner, who has long been critical of the turbo engine rules that came in for 2014.

"What concerns me is that we are now going to three engines for next year, with more races.

"To me, that should be number one on the agenda at the next Strategy Group meeting.

"I tried to get it changed at an earlier meeting in the year, but there was no support for it.

"I would hope that there would now be different outcome, with teams staring down the barrel of further penalties between now and the end of the year."

Horner also wants serious thought given to revising the unpopular grid penalty system.

"It is hard enough for us to understand," he said. "Even going to the grid, we were trying to work out if we were going to be 12th or 13th, because [Sergio] Perez had picked up a penalty but we didn't know if he had picked it up before or after somebody. So it is too confusing.

"I think there needs to be a serious look at whether there is a better way of penalising a manufacturer or an entrant/constructor, as opposed to messing around with the grid, because I think it will only get worse.

"It will be a shame to see this championship decided on grid penalties."

The engine use limit was originally intended as a cost-cutting measure, but manufacturers are now finding that creating long-life components - and proving them on dynos - is actually turning out no cheaper.

"The whole purpose of this limitation in engines was also cost saving, but of course it is not saving the costs," Horner added.

"The engines are going on a world tour anyway, they are being used and you are just incurring penalties as a result.

"Perhaps we need to get back to an equitable balance - perhaps five engines is the right number rather than four going to three."

FIA president Jean Todt has backed the idea of Formula 1 introducing a 'yellow jersey' for the halo, giving the world championship leader a different colour from other drivers.

With the arrival of the Halo in 2018 having divided opinion, there is hope that teams will make the devices more visually appealing, either through aerodynamic tweaks or through the use of different colours.

Todt is pushing for F1 to make use of the opportunities on offer, and suggests the halo is used for improved car number visibility or even to single out the championship leader.

"There are some clever ideas," said Todt when asked by Autosport about his views on the looks of the halo.

"I heard one idea that I quite like: we should give a different colour of halo to the leader of the world championship.

"I want to see the name and the number of the cars, which we cannot see.

"So maybe it will be one opportunity to give that - even if I hear already that teams have sold the space to sponsors. So lucky them!"

In cycling's major stage races, leaders are given a different colour jersey to the other riders - with the Tour de France famously using a yellow jersey.

Todt is unmoved by the fan backlash over the halo, and says his only regret would be not pushing through with the system and there being an accident.

"Honestly, I don't care," he said.

"I do care if something will happen and I will realise that we didn't do something that we could do.

"If you see all the last severe crashes in single-seater racing, they have been around the head.

"I am sure that other bad incidents will happen, and we need to have a vision to do something beforehand."

Sauber's 2018 Formula 1 car will be "completely different" to the current design, says team principal Fred Vasseur.

The team is bottom in the constructors' championship with five points and has increasingly found itself cut off from the midfield as the season has gone on.

Sauber has been hampered by running a 2016-spec Ferrari engine, while question marks over its future last year compromised the '17 design programme.

Having taken over from Monisha Kaltenborn midway through this season, Vasseur acted quickly to call off a planned Honda deal and secure the latest spec Ferrari engine for what he called "a completely new" 2018 design.

"The car is already in the windtunnel and I think we are doing a decent job," said Vasseur.

Sauber is still working out the exact nature of its partnership with Ferrari and whether it will involve any additional components, though Vasseur has previously suggested the collaboration will not go as far as Haas's Ferrari arrangement.

"We are still discussing the parameters of the Ferrari collaboration, but [the carry over will] probably less than 20%," Vasseur said.

"The current one [car] is 2016 so to try and carry over to 2018... we have to start from scratch.

"It's also the reason the car [has] long [been] in the windtunnel.

"The global picture of the car will be completely different."

This will be the first Sauber design that has been led by technical director Jorg Zander, who did not join the team until the eve of the 2017 season.

Vasseur understands the vast scale of the challenge ahead for Sauber, but feels if the team can boost its workforce, it can close the gap to the midfield.

"It's always difficult to have a target because it will depend on the guys around us on the grid," he said.

"It will be difficult to come back into the midfield. It's a big step and there is no big change in the regulations for next year.

"All the other teams will have much better carryover than us.

"For me, the biggest challenge will be to increase the size of the company, to increase the performance of each department.

"If we're able to do this, we will improve on the grid. The group in front of us is very close.

"I want to come back into the fight."

CAL Crutchlow has sympathy for circuits that host Formula 1 and MotoGP races, following complaints from riders about the condition of the Silverstone track surface.

MotoGP riders have been pushing for certain circuits to be resurfaced to make them smoother to ride on, with F1 tracks including Austin, Barcelona, the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone among those in the firing line.

It is felt that the increased forces generated by this year’s faster breed of F1 cars means they are having even more of an effect on the track surfaces, causing rippling in braking zones, and effectively pushing the asphalt across the surface in fast corners where they are generating the most downforce.

“With the downforce of these Formula 1 cars … Spielberg was a joke,” Crutchlow said.

“You can’t imagine, even on the straight the thing was vibrating and bouncing.

“It was worse than last year, and on a lot of the off-camber corners it was a lot worse, so it means the tarmac’s been pushed because of the cars.

“They’ve resurfaced a couple of corners here [Silverstone] and they were a lot better, so how about we resurface the whole track? It’d be a lot easier for all of us.

“The problem is that wherever we share a track with F1, the tracks are bumpy within a year [of being resurfaced], so I understand the concerns of the organisers.”

Factory Honda riders Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa said they will continue to ask for the circuit to be resurfaced, with Marquez saying he made the same requests last year.

“We have more bumps compared to last year, it’s a bumpy track, and again we will ask to re-asphalt all the circuit because it’s one of the worst on the calendar,” he said.

“Silverstone is a great track but for the future, I remember last year asking, if we continue here, to resurface because it’s really bumpy.”

Pedrosa added: “We have the problem that we race with Formula 1 also [on some tracks]. It’s necessary to resurface, we were discussing that.

“But we don’t know how long it will last with a good surface, because we still share the track with Formula 1.”

Valentino Rossi said that patching up certain parts of the circuit causes its own problems, as the joins between various surfaces can be troublesome to ride over.

“For me Silverstone is not a lot worse than last year,” he said.

“The cars of Formula 1 damage the track but also here you have a lot of different asphalt and the cut [between the surfaces] is in the middle of the corner, so for that reason it is more difficult.

“You need to have an easy bike on the bumps but at the same time with high performance, and to find that balance is not easy.”

McLaren says it would consider building its own Formula 1 engine when new regulations come into play in 2021 - but only if costs come down dramatically.

While McLaren is hoping to finalise a switch from Honda to Renault engines for the next few years, it knows that other opportunities could open up in the longer term.

Speaking at the Italian Grand Prix, McLaren executive director Zak Brown said that the engine landscape could be poised for a dramatic change after the current formula comes to an end.

"We're interested to see what the new engine formula is in 2021 - and whether we consider doing our own engine, or whether other people would come in under new rules," said Brown.

"So right now we've got to focus on the next three years and, as soon as we get that figured out, then yeah, of course we've got to look.

"I think the landscape in Formula 1 is going to change in a very positive way from '21 onwards, with budget caps, revenue redistribution, and new engine rules.

"So it's a little hard to take any decisions on '21 with so many things that will change."

Brown said McLaren would need to know well in advance what the new rules were before it could be tempted to go down the engine route.

"For us to do our own engine, that's not something we've done before - so that would require a good lead time and some good capital expenditure," he explained.

"We'd consider doing it. We just need to have an understanding of the platform, what are the rules, and what is it going to cost?

"We certainly wouldn't be in a position to spend the hundreds of millions that it takes now to develop engines, so they're going to have to change the engine formula for it to be something that economically would be viable for us."

Brown thinks that ultimately the best way forward for F1 would be to attract an independent supplier that could guarantee a competitive engine.

"We'd be very much in favour of there being an independent, competitive engine, not just an engine that makes up the numbers," he said.

"The manufacturers are great, I fully embrace them.

"But it would be healthy for the sport, like it's been in the past, to have an independent engine that teams can use should they choose, and it be a competitive engine. That's key.

"The last time around Cosworth was in, and at the end they weren't competitive.

"So it doesn't work to just have an independent engine if it's not something that you can win races with."

Team owner Gene Haas seems determined to avoid the pay driver trend in Formula 1.

For HaasF1's first season in 2016, Haas took on Esteban Gutierrez, who came with the backing of team supplier Ferrari as well as his Mexican sponsors. But he underperformed, and for 2017, Haas replaced him with Kevin Magnussen.

Now, even though Ferrari is actively looking for seats for its juniors Antonio Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc, Haas has confirmed it is keeping Magnussen alongside Romain Grosjean for 2018. Asked if he rules out ever taking on a pay driver again, Gene Haas basically said never say never.

Other say Ferrari has lost control of its partners.

"No, I don't think we rule it out," Haas said. "But for a business model, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. It's no secret that it costs $60 million to put a car on the track for the season, and if someone -- not just Ferrari -- gives you a driver and they're going to pay you $5 or $6 million, there's a $55 million deficit there. I think our point of view has always been that we need to score points and that's how we make money moving forward. So that's our business model.

"I think Ferrari respects that. Based on that, if there's some mutual agreement we could come to, we probably would be more open to it."

High level sources have confirmed that Sainz’s deal has been agreed as part of a sweetener for Renault to end its Toro Rosso contract early

Formula 1 teams are still waiting on "quite fundamental" halo test information that is delaying their final 2018 chassis designs, according to Force India technical director Andy Green.

Teams are waiting for the FIA to confirm details of how the new halo cockpit protection device load test will be conducted before they can finalise the specification of their 2018 chassis.

Full details of the halo and the loads that the chassis mountings are expected to cope with have already been shared, but teams are still waiting to find out exactly how the push test will be applied.

This impacts how the loads will be distributed through their chassis, and the complication is that the test cannot be conducted with a real halo fitted, because it would fail before the chassis mountings.

It means the FIA must design a method to conduct the test that replicates the way forces are put through the chassis by the halo, but which involves higher loads than a real halo would withstand.

Several teams are working with the FIA to resolve the issue, but the delay has caused some frustration, especially for those whose level of resources mean that key design parameters must be frozen early.

"The actual halo that we're going to run has been defined," said Green.

"But the actual chassis that it bolts to hasn't.

"To try to get a chassis to cope with the sign-off loads that the FIA have imposed is a challenge.

"The halo that we're going to race can't withstand those loads, so there's no point in using it to do the load tests on the chassis, because the halo will fail first.

"So, you have to do it with something else, and that's what we're trying to define at the moment.

"Depending on what that something else is will change how you design the chassis, and how strong you need to make the chassis, because it delivers the load in a different way, depending on the geometry.

"At the moment we're missing the details on that device, and it's quite fundamental to the design of the chassis.

"If you fail the test, you can't run."

Force India has previously indicated the late call to make the halo mandatory had made it a race against time to get its 2018 car ready for next year's first pre-season test.

To solve the testing problem, a virtual alternative may be used, with the FIA proposing to back-up a physical test with finite element analysis to model the loads on each team's 2018 chassis.

Teams would provide their own data for inspection and approval by the FIA in what would be an unprecedented form of virtual testing.

This would probably be an interim measure, prior to a refined and fully physical test for 2019.

The plan will be discussed and potentially agreed in a technical regulations meeting next week.

It's the end of an era. After three seasons of heartache and turmoil between McLaren and Honda, the two have officially decided to end their F1 partnership after 2017.

Constant issues have plagued McLaren from competing since the pair rejoined in 2015, failing to mimic the success the two had in Formula One in the 1980s. It's understood that Honda will supply engines to Toro Rosso next season, with McLaren and Renault signing a deal that lasts through the 2020 season.

Sources close to the deal notified Motorsport.comof the split, a decision that was made after the duo failed to capture a win or podium since 2015. This was viewed as a necessary move by many within the McLaren organization with aggravated officials and star driver Fernando Alonso expressing their frustration repeatedly.

This, in turn, leads McLaren to its only logical partner, Renault. It was reported last week that the two were in talks of a deal—and after Carlos Sainz Jr. signed with Renault in a long and convoluted trade, it's now been made official.

The new partnership will end after the 2020 season, just short of when Formula One intends to release new engine regulations in 2021. This will potentially put McLaren on par with rival Red Bull, a team that also uses Renault engine supply and is third in this year's Constructors' Title race.

It's understood that McLaren could potentially develop its own powerplantsonce this engine regulation cycle expires, depending on its future with the French manufacturer. Though marginally more competitive than Honda, Renault has proven to be somewhat unreliable in 2017, with both members from its works team as well as its customer team, Red Bull, suffering from mechanical issues.

The decision to drop Honda in favor of Renault could help to land an extension with Alonso, McLaren hopes, as the team said earlier in the year that it would "do everything" to keep him on board after 2017. The double world champion has made note of his irritation with the McLaren-Honda relationship, so this could be a step in the right direction for the two. Alonso announced earlier on that he will make his decision by the end of September.

Toro Rosso has agreed a three-year deal with Honda for a supply of the Japanese manufacturer's Formula 1 engines, starting next season, Autosport has learned.

Earlier this year Red Bull and Honda first began talks regarding an engine supply for Toro Rosso, which has run Renault power this season.

Honda was keen to take on a second team after its Sauber arrangement fell through, but discussions over Toro Rosso broke down during the summer.

However, McLaren's desire to end its relationship with Honda revived the deal, with McLaren requiring Toro Rosso to part with Renault to free up a supply of the French manufacturer's engines.

Following extensive talks an agreement has been reached by all parties, though official confirmation is not expected until later in the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.

Sources close to the deal have confirmed to Autosport that Toro Rosso has agreed a three-year deal from 2018 with Honda, taking it to the end of the current F1 engine regulations cycle at the end of 2020.

While preparations for next year's car are already well under way, a decision has at least come earlier than when Toro Rosso agreed a switch from Renault to Ferrari power in December 2015 for the following year.

Toro Rosso's switch to Honda power means the outfit will start its third consecutive season with a different supplier next year.

When talks with Toro Rosso began, Marko told Honda chief Masashi Yamamoto he was interested in Red Bull switching in the future if Honda improves its performance sufficiently.

With the Toro Rosso deal now done, such a tie-up with the senior team in the future remains a strong option - especially as Autosport has learned Renault is working to end its Red Bull deal at the end of 2018.