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Radio restrictions are 'a joke' - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel believes the current radio restrictions in F1 are "a joke" which have little impact on driver performance.

The FIA increased its clampdown on radio communications this season in an attempted to ensured the driver drives the car "along and unaided". With a long list of items which teams are not allowed to discuss, the restrictions came to the fore in Baku when both Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen had concerns regarding car performance but the respective teams could not answer their questions.

Hamilton described his situation as "dangerous" as he kept looking down at his steering wheel to try and work out what he may be able to do to resolve the issue, and Vettel has also said he is not a fan of the restrictions.

“Well if you want my honest opinion I think it’s a joke because it doesn’t really change much," Vettel said. "There’s a lot of stuff that you would like to ask and you can’t. Equally I think there is a lot of stuff that the team would like to tell us.

"I don’t think you go any quicker when the team tells you what is going on but yeah the way some people see it, they have a different view. As I said in the end it doesn’t change anything apart from the fact that you have less radio communication to broadcast and I think a little bit less to give to the people."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.