Adam Cooper F1

Lotus deputy team principal Federico Gastaldi denies that the build-up to the seven flyaway races represents a crunch time for the Enstone team as it awaits news on the potential Renault takeover.

The next 11 weeks involve considerable expense for all the F1 teams in terms of freight and personnel travel and accommodation costs, and Lotus has made no secret of its cash flow problems.

“Everything has been planned, like all teams were look ahead,” Gastaldi told this writer. “Part of the freight has already gone to Singapore, hotels and airline tickets are booked. What can I say? In a couple of weeks it will be the same thing, can you go to Japan?

“Here we are, and if people keep speculating about our financial situation, there’s nothing we can do. They hear what they hear. It doesn’t make any good, the rumours and the gossip. I understand that you have to ask.”

He conceded that recent weeks have been challenging as the team waits for the Renault deal to go through.

“It’s not been easy. We’re working on it and we’ll keep pushing. It’s a Renault decision. We are doing our best to try it make it happen, but it’s up to them, it’s not up to us.

“We cannot pretend to be comparing ourselves or competing with the budgets of Mercedes or Ferrari or Red Bull, but listen, we are not far away from being competitive.”

Meanwhile Gastaldi admitted that the double retirement in Monza represented a significant lost opportunity. After Romain Grosjean’s timely third place at Spa in Italy both the Frenchman and team mate Pastor Maldonado were eliminated as a result of contact with other cars in the first chicane.

“I was actually certain that we could be in the points with both cars. We had a good car, both drivers were doing a good job, we had a good qualifying session, we didn’t expect to be out on the first or second lap, but here we are. It’s only been race situations where both cars went out of the track on the first lap. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

There are increasing signs that Red Bull’s attempt to get Mercedes engines for 2016 is likely to fail, despite strong lobbying from the drinks company.

Bernie Ecclestone has been pushing for it to happen as he wants RBR to be a competitive force, but Toto Wolff has been admanant all along that there were many downside to such a deal – most notably the very obvious one of handing the best power unit in the paddock to the one team with arguably a stronger chassis and aero department than Mercedes itself has.

In addition there has long been a frosty relationship between Mercedes and Red Bull, and two have always been in rival camps in the DTM, for example. The Mercedes management is known to have been furious when Red Bull jumped ship and signed up with Bernie Ecclestone after the last Concorde Agreement ended.

Daimler/Mercedes boss Dieter Zetsche is assumed to have the final call, but asked by this writer in Monza about the prospects for a deal he would only say: “I have not got an official request for the engine so there’s no need for any official comment.”

If Mercedes has made a final decision Red Bull’s only alternative to Renault is to return to Ferrari, renewing a partnership that last just one season in 2006 before the Italian engines were passed to Toro Rosso.

Ferrari boss Sergio Marchionne announced to the media in Austria in June that Ferrari would be willing to supply Red Bull.

“It’s in our DNA, we’ve done it before,” said Marchionne. “I think we can provide engines to any of the teams that want to race. As long as we keep control over the aerodynamic work on the car, I think there’s going to be enough distinguishing traits between us and the competition. We are more than glad to try and provide a level playing field, now that the engine is there.

“I talk to everybody. And I have a lot of respect for Red Bull. I think they’ve done a lot for the sport, they’ve had the world championship for a number of years. I think they will find their way again and if we can help them get there, we’d be more than glad to do it.”

Meanwhile it had been widely expected that if RBR went with Mercedes then Toro Rosso would go back to Ferrari, having used the Italian engines in 2007-13. With Haas coming on board it remains to be seen whether Ferrari would have the capacity to add both RBR and STR to its list of customers, but a possible move by Manor to Mercedes would potentially help.

“As you know we have a Renault contract, the rest we will see,” Franz Tost told this writer. “We have a good relationship with Ferrari, but this does not mean that we will be partners in the future. We will see, the future will show us. Currently we are contracted to Renault.”

Lewis Hamilton has kept his Italian GP victory after an investigation by the FIA involving the tyre pressures on his car.

Tyre pressures have been a major talking point this weekend after the problems in Spa, and Pirelli made it clear that teams had to respect its mandated minimums for safety reasons. Unusually the pressures of the top four cars were measured at the last minute on the grid.

While the Ferraris were above the limit, one of Hamilton’s tyres was 0.3psi below the limit, and one of team mate Nico Rosberg’s was 1.1psi below. This was duly reported to the stewards.

However, after a long post-race investigation the FIA eventually concluded that the tyre pressures were in fact legal “when they were fitted to the car.”

The FIA added: “The stewards recommend that the tyre manufacturer and the FIA hold further meetings to provide clear guidance to the teams on measurement protocols.”

Team boss Toto Wolff said: “We were exactly on the minimum pressures like we should have been when the tyres were put on the car. I don’t know where the discrepancy came from, but it was not procedural and it was not a mistake done by the team in order to gain an advantage.

“Always being called to the stewards you are nervous after such a victory, having lost Nico’s car two laps to the end. So I’m a little bit relieved after that now.”