Williams technical director Pat Symonds has become the latest Formula One chief to call for a rethink of team radio restrictions, saying the current system has the potential to breed negligence.
Mercedes became the first team to fall foul of the new regulations after the stewards added 10 seconds to Nico Rosberg's race time at the British Grand Prix for a radio call relating to a gearbox issue. The incident has reignited the debate over the radio restrictions, which are designed to prevent engineers from coaching the drivers from the pit wall.
Symonds believes the restrictions go too far and says engineers need to be able to warn drivers of potential issues on the car, such as Sergio Perez's brake failure at the Austrian Grand Prix.
"On the pitwall, we know our rules pretty well -- and normally when something happens, we know what to do," Symonds said. "With this, every single race, there's a debate that goes on in the pit lane, 'oh, we shouldn't do this, what are we going to do?'
"Poor old Perez in Austria, how ridiculous. You're going to do tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage to the car, because you can't tell a guy his brakes are about to fail? That's negligent. It's not just wrong, it's negligent.
"We have debated the very situation Perez found himself in and we said that if that's the case, we'll tell the driver to stop, we don't care about a penalty, we're not going to risk injuring a driver."
Symonds believes the rules need to be revised to allow engineers to talk drivers through some of the more complicated procedures on the car.
"I don't like it. To me it's a team sport and we should work together. If people really do object to us coaching the drivers, I can live with that, but helping them manage the systems? I really don't think that's a problem.
"But where do you draw the line? It's a team sport and if the driver has to drive the car alone and unaided, should he change his own tyres? Can you imagine that? Where do you draw the line? And where they have drawn the line [on radio communications] is not in a good place."