Formula 1's Latest Rumours and Talk: Pirelli Failures, Max Chilton, Mexico, More

Grand Prix Drivers' Association chairman Alex Wurz has called on Pirelli to ensure tyre blowouts are consigned to Formula One history.

Speaking after Sebastian Vettel suffered a dramatic failure of his right-rear tyre on the penultimate lap of the Belgian Grand Prix, former Williams, Benetton and McLaren driver Wurz says Pirelli needs the full support of the drivers and sport as a whole to push through whatever safety changes they feel are necessary.

Bernie Ecclestone also wants to see a change, but his sights are set on a team, not the tyres. The commercial rights chief says it's "wrong" for Mercedes to have such a level of dominance over the rest of the field and believes the sport needs greater competition at the front.

Elsewhere, Valtteri Bottas wants Williams to learn from their pit-stop mistake in Belgium, Max Chilton has held talks with Haas over a race seat in 2016 and the redesigned Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is just weeks away from completion.

With the first Mexican Grand Prix since 1992 just two months away, let's hope there are no unforeseen delays.

Read on for a full roundup of the top stories from the last few days.

Grand Prix Drivers Association chairman Alex Wurz has called for an end to catastrophic tyre failures after narrow escapes for both Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.

Rosberg's right-rear tyre failed during practice on the approach to Blanchimont, while Vettel suffered a blowout of the same tyre late in the race just after exiting Eau Rouge-Raidillon.

Wurz did not directly criticise the tyre company, but he told BBC Sport changes have to be made. He said:

We need to stop the sudden explosions.

As drivers, we strongly believe the end of a tyre's performance window can and should not be a tyre delamination in the form of an explosion.

I believe there are technologies which prevent such sudden delamination, but for the short term we need to give Pirelli the freedom and support to introduce any measures they declare safe and fit for F1 racing.

We request their utmost attention to the tyre blow-outs at Spa. We need to work together to get on top of such safety concerns.

TV replays clearly showed Rosberg's tyre had signs of damage at least half a lap prior to the failure. Pirelli released a statement revealing their analysis had found a cut from an external source was to blame.

Motorsport.com later reported a number of other drivers also suffered cut tyres during the weekend and Pirelli had asked the FIA to ensure the track surface and run-off areas were kept especially clean.

But Vettel's blowout was very different—caused, says Pirelli, by wear. This claim has proved contentious because the manufacturer had "indicated" the tyre would do 40 laps—it failed after 28, having exhibited no significant pace drop-off or symptoms it was at the end of its life.

If wear was to blame, it wasn't the usual sort we see at other circuits.

Wurz is right that blowouts are unacceptable; every possible step should be taken to minimise the risk of repeats. A Pirelli statement released after the race revealed they had, two years ago, asked for limits to be placed on the number of laps any set of tyres were allowed to do.

This would—so far as we are able to tell—have prevented Vettel's blowout occurring.

But if we look at 2015 as a whole, such a limit seems totally unnecessary because the tyres have been absolutely fine at every other race.

If the imposition of such a limit is needed in the short term to restore confidence in the tyres, so be it. But in the long term, Pirelli must be given the freedom and funding to undertake unlimited testing of their tyres using a representative car—something they cannot currently do.

Fans, the teams and the drivers will never be entirely sure what's going to happen with the rubber so long as compound choices and "indications" are based on simulations instead of truly representative, real-world data.

Max Chilton has revealed he has held talks with the new Haas F1 team regarding a potential race seat in 2016.

The British driver made his debut for Marussia—now Manor—at the start of the 2013 season and spent two years with the back-marking outfit. His best finishes were a pair of 13th places in the 2014 Australian and Bahrain Grands Prix.

He took a step down to Indy Lights for 2015 but would welcome a return to the big time. However, though he has spoken to Haas, he accepts another driver is more likely to get the seat.

Speaking on Sky Sports' F1 Midweek Report, Chilton revealed:

I've definitely put my foot in the door and we've had a few chats. I think they came out a few weeks ago and said they were talking to 10 drivers so I am definitely one of those. I'd love the chance, but I have a strong feeling that it is going to be one young Ferrari driver, because it is hugely a Ferrari project—they have Ferrari engines and are using their wind tunnel—and then I hear they want an experienced driver.

I like to think I am experienced, but if they want a really experienced driver I think there are only a certain number of drivers on that grid.

So I think it could be Hulkenberg, I can't see Jenson [Button] going there, but I can't see many other experienced drivers that are free for next year. So I'd like to think I have a chance, but it is probably not going to happen.

Chilton secured his drive at Marussia due to his financial backing, not his talent; Haas are unlikely to need the sort of boost he can provide and are more likely to go for a driver with a proven record. Chilton is almost certainly right that someone else will get the seat.

If the team opts for a Ferrari-linked driver, Esteban Gutierrez and Jean-Eric Vergne would be the names in the frame. Of the two, Vergne has the more impressive pedigree and recently hinted to Downforce Radio (h/t Fox Sports) that he had "a few cards in my hand for Formula One."

Haas would surely be one of them.

Nico Hulkenberg has also been linked with a switch to the new team. The talented German's career is going nowhere at Force India—signing on with Ferrari-powered Haas might be a risk worth taking.

As for Button, it's interesting that Chilton considers him "free" for next season. Does he know something we don't?

Valtteri Bottas has called on his Williams team to learn from their mistakes after a near-comical tyre mix-up cost him any chance of a top-five finish in Spa.

The Finn came into the pits at the end of Lap 8 expecting to receive a full set of slightly used soft-compound tyres. But somehow, despite it having a very obvious white stripe around the outside, a rogue medium-compound tyre found its way onto his right rear.

He received a drive-through penalty as a result—mixing compounds is not permitted—and fell out of contention; he has now urged the team to avoid any repeats. Speaking after the race, Bottas was quoted by Autosport saying:

We can't afford mistakes like this.

It is another weekend which we need to learn from and we need to make sure we don't do this kind of mistake again.

We definitely didn't get 100 per cent out of the weekend.

We just didn't have the pace to challenge the guys in front.

But we should have got more points than what we did.

Lap time data published by the FIA shows the drive-through penalty cost Bottas around 12 to 13 seconds and saw him fall from seventh to 11th. He finished the race in ninth, just seven seconds behind fifth-placed man Sergio Perez.

It's impossible to say exactly how his race would have panned out had he not been given the penalty, but, as Bottas says, he would almost certainly have scored more points.

His contract with Williams expires at the end of 2015. There'll be a vacancy at Ferrari for the following season, and teams like McLaren, Red Bull or Mercedes could also have a seat up for grabs.

Bottas' manager, Didier Coton, told Autosport earlier in August that he was speaking to Williams about his client's future.

Errors like this one—and the messy strategic fudge at Silverstone—are unlikely to encourage Bottas to make any sort of long-term commitment.

Formula One commercial rights chief Bernie Ecclestone has again voiced his displeasure at the level of dominance Mercedes are currently enjoying.

Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have between them won 25 out of 30 races since the new V6 turbo hybrid engines were introduced at the start of 2014. The other teams have won just five between them—and only one of those victories was achieved without significant misfortune (or poor driving) striking the Silver Arrows.

The primary factor giving the team such an advantage over their rivals is their power unit. Ferrari have improved theirs, but it's still not at the level of Mercedes, while the Renault lump in the back of the Red Bulls is nowhere near good enough.

Honda, partners of McLaren, are even further behind.

Ecclestone has spoken before of his dismay at how far ahead Mercedes are—his comments to Sky Sports' Craig Slater in January 2015 are just one example, and now he's at it again.

Speaking to Dutch broadcaster Sport 1 (h/t James Allen), he said:

What we really need is more competition. What I don’t want to happen is what’s happened [last weekend]—before that race, you could guarantee that the Mercedes cars were going to be first and second if they finished—we’re talking about qualifying, and the race as well.

What we’ve got at the moment, which is wrong, is one very, very, very dominant team—with a particularly dominant engine.

It’s not nice to see somebody like Vettel two seconds off the pace, because he is not two seconds off the pace.

Indeed, he isn't two seconds off the pace, and he hasn't been all year—the gap has been less than half that figure.

But putting exaggeration aside, it's clear what Ecclestone is saying, and the same is true of many drivers on the grid. It's no fun at all seeing Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button trundling around in their McLarens with no hope of competing, and it'd be great to see young guns like Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat fighting at the front.

The very thought of equalising engine performance, especially so early into a new formula, is enough to fill one with dread. But at the same time, it is clear that the sport has shot itself in the foot by enforcing such strict rules on power unit development.

Mercedes did the best job and earned their advantage—that much is true and beyond dispute. But how long should that advantage be allowed to remain? Two years is entirely reasonable, but what about three, four or five years?

The token system is doing something it was not supposed to do—holding back teams and careers. It's also robbing fans of multi-team battles for the title, and even Hamilton and Rosberg probably wish they had someone else to race against.

At some stage a relaxation will need to occur to provide the rest with, at the very least, a chance to catch up.

The only question is when.

Construction work on the redesigned Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is nearing completion as Mexico counts down the weeks to its F1 return.

The track last hosted a grand prix in 1992; extensive building work, substantial changes to the track layout and improved spectator facilities were needed to bring it up to modern standards. The race is scheduled to take place in a little over two months, and the organisers expect everything to be completed in time.

Federico Gonzalez, managing director of the race's promoters, CIE, told Autosport:

We're almost there. Progress is being made every day and we're on schedule.

We have completed the first layer around the whole track and expect to have the second and third layer in place in approximately three weeks.

We are 90 per cent complete. We have almost finished all the buildings and the track.

Charlie Whiting [F1 race director] is visiting later this month and we're confident of homologating the racetrack on those days.

The Autodromo hosted its first world championship event in 1963 and underwent relatively minor alterations ahead of the 1986 Mexican Grand Prix. The modifications being made ahead of this year's event, due to take place on November 1, are much greater.

A photograph of the new track laid over the old one, taken last year at a sponsor event and published by GP Update, indicates every turn will be reprofiled in some way.

The greatest change is at the old final corner—instead of tackling the fearsome and dangerous Peraltada, the drivers will negotiate a sequence of slow, fiddly corners inside a baseball stadium.

Though necessary on safety grounds, it's a little bit like Victoria's Secret firing all its models and replacing them with David Hasselhoff and Donald Trump.

But the circuit still looks a cut above the usual Hermann Tilke fare and should retain at least some of its old character. The sell-out crowd of over 100,000 passionate fans will see to that.