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Marcus Ericsson has been given clearance to start the British GP after an early morning FIA medical check.

A statement from the FIA said: “Following a medical examination undertaken this morning at the Silverstone Circuit Medical Centre, the FIA has cleared Sauber F1 Team driver Marcus Ericsson to take part in today’s British Grand Prix.”

The Swede went for a checks at a hospital in Oxford yesterday after his FP3 accident at Stowe, before returning to the circuit later in the afternoon.

Although he did not take part in qualifying the stewards gave him permission to race as he had been fast enough in practice, pending today’s medical check.

The Sauber team has built up the spare chassis, and he has also changed his gearbox.

Kimi Raikkonen joked today that he is happy to see “disappointed people” after news of his new Ferrari contract stirred up some criticism from media and fans.

Raikkonen has been confirmed as Sebastian Vettel’s team mate for next season despite inevitable discussion about whether he deserves to stay on. Raikkonen said he’s pleased that the talk will now stop.

“Obviously it is more easy,” he said. “People stop asking the same question. I would not sign the contract if I wouldn’t be happy here, if I wouldn’t think that I can drive well. The rest doesn’t really change. We go every race weekend the same way, we work the same way.

“It’s just I think more easy for us, people leave us alone a little bit more and are not hassling us around these kind of things.

“Obviously I am very happy about it. It gives me pleasure to see disappointed people! When it comes to next year obviously it is a different story again with the different rules.”

Ferrari has confirmed that Kimi Raikkonen will stay with the team in 2017, ending speculation about the Finn’s future and his possible replacements.

A simple statement said: “Scuderia Ferrari announces that it has renewed its technical and racing agreement with Kimi Raikkonen. The driver line-up for the 2017 racing season will still consist of the Finnish driver and Sebastian Vettel.”

Although it is not spelled out it would appear that the deal is just for one year.

Carlos Sainz says that Toro Rosso has to start to get qualifying right in order to take full advantage of the pace of the STR11.

The Spaniard put in a charging drive to eighth in Austria, but he was compromised by starting only 15 th after hitting engine problems in qualifying. That came on the back of qualifying dramas in the previous two races.

“It’s good, but it showed that we need to start doing better Saturdays, because the pace in the race is there,” he said. “Unfortunately we’ve been on three consecutive Saturdays having problems – me in Canada crashing, Baku with the brakes, and here with the engine. Hopefully in Silverstone we can return to the top 10 in quali, and from there do better races, because at the moment we have to recover too much in every race.”

Sainz lost out in Austria when he pitted as the safety car led the field through the pit lane, and had to wait before he was released. From 17 th immediately after the safety car he was eighth by the flag.

“We recovered a lot of sports at the start, and then we lost them all at the second pit stop, because of the traffic in the pitlane. And then from second to last I had to recover to eighth, so it was good fun, I enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of top speed, but with the good chassis, we could recover.”

Nico Rosberg will take a five-place grid penalty in Austria following a heavy crash in FP3 this morning.

Rosberg suffered a left rear suspension failure when he ran over the kerbs at Turn 2. The car turned sharp left into the barrier, striking with the front and then the rear. The latter impact led to the decision to change the gearbox.

Yesterday Max Verstappen suffered a front suspension failure when he ran wide and bounced over the new ‘sausage’ kerbs, but worryingly for Mercedes Rosberg was on a normal line, and thus it was not the result of a mistake or because he had abused the kerbs.

The team said that the failure was caused by an “unusually high load at full throttle on the exit kerb of T2.”

With Sebastian Vettel already taking a five-place the rest of the field has a better chance than usual of making the first couple of rows of the grid.

Nico Rosberg admits that safety car restarts could be one of the biggest hurdles that the European GP pole winner will have to overcome in today’s race.

Saturday’s GP2 feature event saw a lot of overtaking immediately after safety car restarts, and it’s clear that the leader is much more vulnerable than is the case at other circuits.

“I’m very optimistic going into tomorrow’s race, so there are not too many concerns,” said Rosberg. “But yes, that is going to be one of the challenging aspects about tomorrow’s race. It’s going to be different, but not something that can’t be handled adequately. For sure we’ll see some exciting racing I think, and at restarts there’s going to be a lot going on, definitely. It will be good.”

Rosberg said he has not discounted a potential challenge from Lewis Hamilton, despite the World Champion starting only 10^th.

“I’m very, very happy to be on pole, and I’m plead that my direct opponent is a bit further back, because that’s going to make it easier for me in tomorrow’s race. But easy is the wrong word because winning an F1 race is never easy, and the opposition is still massively on it, with Ricciardo and the Ferraris and Lewis of course from 10^th.

“He’s shown it so many times already this year, and especially in this track, it’s where you can overtake best I think ever in F1, we’ll see tomorrow but it looks like it, I expect him to come back quickly as well.”

Asked if a win was imperative after his recent bad run he said: “It’s not imperative, it would be great, and I would love to win the race tomorrow, that’s it. I don’t think too far beyond that as I’ve always said, because my best approach is to concentrate on tomorrow’s race and try to go fro the win.”

Renault will supply Red Bull until 2018, and will also reunite with Toro Rosso for the next two seasons.

The deal comes as no surprise given the improved form of the French engine and the ongoing lack of an opportunity for Red Bull to move elsewhere.

After a year with Ferrari power STR will return to Renault, ensuring that once again there can be closer co-operation between the two teams. Both teams will have the right to badge the engine.

Christian Horner said: “We are delighted to extend our partnership which has proved very successful over time. After the reconstruction that Renault has undertaken, clear progress has been made which has made it logical to continue with the TAG Heuer badged engine.”

The family of Jules Bianchi has launched a legal action in connection with the Frenchman’s accident at the 2014 Japanese GP.

Bianchi died nine months after his collision with a crane that was sent out to retrieve the car of Adrian Sutil.

The action, which is being handled by a British law firm, names the FIA, the F1 Group, and the Marussia team, which is now known as Manor Racing.

A statement from the law firm said: “Stewarts Law, the UK’s largest litigation-only law firm, have this week sent formal pre-action letters of claim to:

– The World Governing Body of Formula One, the FIA;

– Team Marussia, who Jules was driving for at the time; and

– The Formula One Group of companies, who control the TV and media rights for the sport.

“The letters explain why the Bianchi family feel the actions of one or more of those parties, amongst others, may have contributed to Jules’ fatal accident and invite them to accept that errors were made in the planning, timing, organisation and conduct of the race which took place in dangerous conditions during the typhoon season in Japan.

It added: “Prominent individuals in the world of Formula One, including current and former drivers and world champions, have criticised the conduct of the race.”

The Bianchi family’s lawyer says the aim of the action is to find out who is accountable.

“Jules Bianchi’s death was avoidable,” said Stewarts Law partner Julian Chamberlayne. “The FIA Panel Inquiry Report into this accident made numerous recommendations to improve safety in Formula One but failed to identify where errors had been made which led to Jules’ death.

“It was surprising and distressing to the Bianchi family that the FIA panel in its conclusions, whilst noting a number of contributing factors, blamed Jules. The Bianchi family are determined that this legal process should require those involved to provide answers and to take responsibility for any failings.

“This is important if current and future drivers are to have confidence that safety in the sport will be put first. If this had been the case in Suzuka, Jules Bianchi would most likely still be alive and competing in the sport he loved today.”

“We seek justice for Jules, and want to establish the truth about the decisions that led to our son’s crash at the Japanese Grand Prix in 2014. As a family, we have so many unanswered questions and feel that Jules’ accident and death could have been avoided if a series of mistakes had not been made.”

The statement also confirmed that the Bianchi family is setting up a charitable organisation in Jules’ memory “which will support young, aspiring motorsport drivers to realise their potential. They will this weekend be attending the Monaco Grand Prix, a race which had a special place in Jules’ life, to promote the work of the charitable organisation and its future plans. The family has previously spoken of being unable to watch Formula One because of the pain caused by their son’s death,

but have decided to travel to Monaco this weekend to champion their work to support young drivers and improve safety in the sport.”

Daniel Ricciardo says he has come to terms with the disappointment of losing a potential win in the Spanish GP after a strategic call by Red Bull didn’t work out.

Ricciardo finished fourth after making three stops, while Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen were first and second after making two stops. At the time the team thought Ricciardo had the better deal and could win the race, but it took some explaining before the Aussie understood.

“Sure I was disappointed, and it obviously sucked the outcome, to have a win and then not even a podium from a potential victory,” he said today. “I spoke a lot with the team and had a lot of explanations, the reasons why we pitted and at the time it seemed the three-stop was the best thing to do, and at the time they thought Seb was our biggest challenger for the victory, so with me they tried to cover him, and they thought basically the three-stop was going to be the best.

“So it was just, they put the race against Seb and tried to stay in front – what hurt on top of that was Seb going really short in that second last stint, so it meant not only did he undercut me but his tyres were not that fresh towards the end of the race so he couldn’t make much of a difference to Max and Kimi. So it was a combination of them thinking the three-stop would have worked, but they probably didn’t believe the two-stop would have worked as well as it did. It didn’t fall in my favour which obviously sucked, but there was no other agenda behind it.”

Ricciardo said he was no fazed by the attention that Verstappen has been getting.

“What fans are saying or what media are saying, I don’t let it control me. I think in any case, whether strategy or not worked for Max, he still did a really good race. And even if we all had a three-stop, he would still have had a podium wherever it was. He would still have got a podium in his first race with the team, so I think whichever way the race went, Max was always getting a good result.

“He had already done a good weekend and shown he had adapted really quickly so I wouldn’t take anything away from Max – what he has done has been great. And to then win and to make the tyres last was really good. Obviously now, people will say what they want to say – that he is already better or this and that – but he did well. He did very well. That is that. There are still many races to go and many more opportunities for us to get on the podium and wins. I still obviously believe a lot in my ability.”