“There should be an ongoing process, so to speak. However he arrived earlier
and we need to rethink our original plans. At the moment Paddy helps
wherever he can. Paddy and I have known each other for over 20 years. We can
talk about everything.
“I am responsible [for the team], Paddy works for me, but at some point in the
future this will change. I will work with Paddy for the next six months,
maybe longer.
“When the transition occurs, there will be a soft handover.” He added that
2014 “will be a very exciting year, because a completely new technology
comes into play. Mercedes will be in a promising situation. I do not know
what role I will play in the team long term. There are various options. I
like the team and the people in a team.”
Mercedes had a tough day on the track on Friday, with both of their drivers
ruling out the possibility of victory at the weekend.
Having been barred from last week’s young driver test at Silverstone as a
result of their illegal test with Pirelli in May, the Brackley team arrived
in Hungary without having used the new specification of tyres.
“We don’t seem to have the pace that we had at the last race but we’ll make
some changes tonight and try to understand it,” said Lewis
Hamilton, who finished the afternoon session sixth quickest.
“We came into the weekend on the back foot trying to understand the tyres, and
we did a lot of laps today. We’ve learnt quite a lot, we’ve made some
changes, and we can make some better changes for tomorrow.”
As far as Mercedes’ place in the pecking order was concerned, Hamilton was not
optimistic: “I was told that on the same laps on long runs, Mark Webber was
about eight tenths ahead at some stages, so that’s interesting . . . Ferrari
is competitive, there’s Lotus and then the Red
Bull is absolutely ballistic.”
Rosberg added that the hot conditions, with temperatures set to soar as high
as 38C in Hungary this weekend, were the worst possible scenario for
Mercedes, with tyre wear in races still the team’s Achilles heel.
“The hotter it is, the worse it is for us and the more we’re going to
struggle,” he said. “And this is likely to be the hottest race of the year.
It’s going to be tough.”
Meanwhile, it was announced on Friday that teams will now be handed 10-place
grid penalties if they allow cars to leave their pits with loose wheels.
The move comes as part of the ongoing safety clampdown triggered by the
incident when a wheel from Mark Webber’s Red Bull hit a cameraman at the
German Grand Prix earlier this month. There has also been a clampdown on
media presence in the pits.
It is understood that the proposal to introduce a minimum pit-stop time was
rejected by all teams. McLaren’s Jenson Button suggested that the sport
should bring back refuelling in order to slow down pit stops.
Meanwhile the BBC denied rumours they may bring an early halt to their F1
coverage, scheduled to run until the end of the 2018 season, after signing a
new deal for FA Cup rights.
A spokesman said: “We are not withdrawing from our coverage of F1 – as far as
BBC Sport is concerned the rumours are unfounded.”