Horner: Radio rules are rubbish

Mercedes was deemed to be in breach of the technical directive that states a driver must drive "alone and unaided" when it gave Nico Rosberg instructions on how to circumnavigate a gearbox problem during the British Grand Prix.

The world champion team has lodged its intention to appeal.

Though Red Bull moved up to second place with Max Verstappen thanks to Rosberg's penalty, Horner sympathised with the rival team.

"The rule is rubbish," said Horner. "It doesn't make a great deal of sense but the rules are the rules."

Rosberg was given a 10-second time penalty as stewards deemed Mercedes had gone too far when it instructed him to shift quickly through seventh gear to get around his issue.

Before the verdict came out, Horner speculated that a time penalty or reprimand would mean "it's all fair game for the rest of the year and there'll be loads of messages that will take into account whether it is worth five seconds or not, or a reprimand".

Horner believes such messages might be essential given the complexity of the hybrid cars.

"The cars are technically very complex and you can understand why Mercedes would want to give that message to keep their driver running," he said.

"The question going forward is are these rules right for F1? That's a different question."

Williams technical chief Pat Symonds is not in favour of the restrictions and says the fact they are a technical directive rather than a regulation leaves too much scope for interpretation.

"I don't like it," he said. "To me it's a team sport, you should work together.

"A technical directive is not a rule, it's an opinion.

"Charlie [Whiting] has written that technical directive and said 'this is what you can say everything else is illegal'.

"Well, that's his interpretation of a very, very vague rule about the driver driving the car alone and unaided.

"There are a couple of things we heard on the radio that we asked Charlie 'are you sure you are happy with that?' and he said 'yeah'.

"Every single race there's a debate going on on the pitwall."

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes the FIA and teams need to rethink the restrictions.

"The rules maybe need a rethink, between the FIA and the teams, to maybe go more into detail about what's allowed," he said.

"Not communicating at all, you can just turn the radio off and throw it out of the car.

"It's been part of driving since a long time. It needs to be discussed."