Williams has narrowed their list of candidates to partner Lance Stroll in 2018 to just three, according to Motorsport.com on Saturday with Robert Kubica one of the names mentioned.

It is understood the Grove team has taken over from Renault in their assessment of the Pole, who completed two tests in a 2012 car followed by a third in the 2017 car in Hungary this summer, with the former BMW driver testing the 2014 car.

The French manufacturer ended their interest in what is a much hoped for return for Kubica, after a loan deal for another of their targets, Carlos Sainz, was agreed with Red Bull amid the Toro Rosso/ Honda engine deal.

That has opened the door for a Kubica to look elsewhere with Williams now the highest profile team with a seat not yet secured for next season. Currently, it belongs to Felipe Massa, with the Brazilian signing a one-year extension and putting off retirement at the start of this year to facilitate Valtteri Bottas' exit.

The 36-year-old is the second name mentioned with Williams pleased with his performances, although the former Ferrari driver admits he has been considering a switch to Formula E. 

The final name is reserve driver Paul di Resta who impressed after stepping into the car in Hungary, when Massa was unwell, and drove amicably despite having never driven the 2017 car before qualifying.

The Scot has been off the F1 grid since leaving Force India in 2013 but could arguably offer a longer-term solution for Williams than either Kubica or Massa.

Long shots are believed to be Jolyon Palmer, who was recently dropped by Renault and Marcus Ericsson, who continues to eye a promotion up the grid from Sauber.

However, two names previously linked, Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso, are now out with the Mexican, who replaced Di Resta at Force India in 2014, re-signing for a fifth season with the team, while Alonso is now expected to remain with McLaren for another year after the Woking outfit ditched Honda for Renault engines.

Formula 2 and IndyCar are now the only series where the champion's become immediately eligible for an F1 seat under a new superlicence points system confirmed by the FIA on Thursday.

The system was introduced two years ago amid unhappiness at the influence of pay drivers in F1 and concerns over age, following Max Verstappen's promotion to Toro Rosso at 18 in 2015.

At the time a number of series, GP2 (now F2), European Formula 3, Formula E, IndyCar and the World Endurance Championship LMP1 winners all received the necessary 40 points to be eligible for the necessary superlicence to compete in F1, however, that has now been ended in an attempt to form a more clear ladder from karting to the 'pinnacle of motorsport'.

Greater emphasis has been put on F2 with the top three in the championship all now picking up the full 40 points, while in IndyCar the number drops to 30 for second and 20 for third.

European F3, Formula E and WEC LMP1 still feature highly with 30 points awarded to their respective champions, with GP3 dropping to 25. One of the main losers has been the Formula V8 3.5 with the champion there only receiving 20 points compared to the previous 35, that puts the series on the same level as Japan's Super Formula and the LMP2 class in the WEC.

The major Touring Car championships all offer 15 points including WTCC, DTM, Super GT and also now the NASCAR Cup. Australia's Supercars series is not far behind with 13 points on offer.

IMSA Prototypes and Indy Lights have also been added with the latter giving 15 points and the prior just 12, these categories also come with the caveat that all road courses must meet to FIA standards.

These new figures will come into effect from next year and require any driver to have reached the total of 40 points over a three-year period.

Force India Deputy Team Principal Bob Fernley has called on Formula 1's new owners to work faster in deciding and implementing changes as the team reveals a bigger financial loss in 2016, despite higher prize money. 

The midfield teams have been looking to CEO Chase Carey and Motorsport Managing Director Ross Brawn to usher in their vision for a more level playing field between all the teams and take real action to help those smaller operations financially whether it be through reducing spending or increasing revenue. 

Though it is known Liberty can't implement too much before the end of the current Concorde Agreement, which ends after 2020, Fernley expected at least a more concrete idea of the path they want to take F1 down.

"I'm disappointed in some ways," he told Motorsport.com. "We have done an awful lot of talking and an awful lot of ideas have come through. But when we're nine months down the road, you'd have thought we'd have been firming something up a bit more now."

Much of the focus in recent months has been on deciding the engine regulations for 2021 and beyond, with cost and greater simplicity among the key criteria set out. Even on this issue, however, the often outspoken Briton wasn't pleased.

"The engine programme should be finalised because that is the cornerstone of the cost control programme," he claimed. "Cost control should be coming through very closely behind it, if that's where we're going, because people have to respond to it.

"The clock is ticking. It won't be long until we're into next year. I was hoping we would be seeing something now, at least a skeleton of where we're going but we're getting nothing at all.

"There has been a lot of meetings behind closed doors, now, it's a case of Liberty presenting something that can be considered."

As mentioned, Fernley's comments come as it is revealed the team made a nett loss of £11.6m in 2016, an increase of almost £5m compared to the year before despite gaining almost £13m more in revenue.

Fluctuations in the currencies would be given as the main reason for the higher loss, however, it does back up regular claims from those who are against greater cost control who claim money saved in one area would simply be then spent in another.  

The outlook for the team is rosier, however, with prize money from their best ever finish of fourth in the Teams' standings due this year and Force India is firmly on course to repeat that performance again in 2017.  

Also, a significant deal with BWT, which resulted in the pink liveries, and money saved on engine and gearbox costs by hiring Esteban Ocon from Mercedes will bolster their balance sheet.   

The FIA has announced engine limits and penalties will be stricter than originally intended for 2018, this is despite the recent outcry against enforcing tighter rules after the grid farce at Monza.

At the Italian Grand Prix, nine drivers were impacted by penalties for new engine components or gearbox changes. That led to a situation where some who had penalised actually started ahead of where they originally finished in qualifying.

With all teams struggling to make the current limit of four full power units last until Abu Dhabi, there were calls to freeze if not add an additional engine to each driver's allocation for a full season, especially with 2018 set to feature 21 races. 

However, at a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council on Thursday, the governing body went the other way on some components actually reducing the number allowed for next year.  

It was intended the limit would drop from four to three engines for 2018 and in the case of the MGU-H, turbocharger and Internal Combustion Engine that will be the case, however, for the battery, control electronics and MGU-K, that number is now reduced to just two. 

Furthermore, a slight modification has been made to the grid penalty system. The underlying system remains of a 10-place drop for the first infraction over the limit of each component and five for any subsequent but, should a team need to change a component more than once over a weekend resulting in penalties, only the last component used and raced with is added to their pool for the season.

The FIA insists these ludicrous limits and subsequent penalties are all a matter of reducing costs, but what they fail to realise is many of the components simply aren't capable of doing the mileage demanded to stay within the rules. 

Teams won't save money because if they need to buy a fourth, fifth or sixth component to complete a season they aren't exactly going to consider the financial impact if faced with a situation where they wouldn't be able to go racing. 

Instead, all this does is harm the show for the spectator as now there will be much less Friday Practice running with teams trying to save mileage and quite possibly a situation like Monza where only four drivers started where they qualified and two of them were the men who started 1st and 20th.

Efforts are underway to find alternatives to the grid penalty system, however, perhaps it should be remembered by the governing body that F1 has been or should always be about the fastest cars going as fast as possible. If President Jean Todt wants to have a sustainability championship where parts last forever, there's just a place for that too, it's called the WEC.

Daniel Ricciardo has put Max Verstappen ahead of Sebastian Vettel in terms of being his toughest teammate during his almost four-year spell with the Red Bull team.

The Australian was drafted in to replace fellow Australian Mark Webber at the beginning of 2014 and alongside Vettel after he had claimed the last his current tally of four world titles.

Unfortunately, his arrival coincided with the start of the new hybrid era which signalled an end to the Milton Keynes outfit's period of success and eventually the German leaving the team for Ferrari after becoming frustrated by the engine situation.

That year, Ricciardo would also announce himself by claiming three victories to Sebastian's none and would finish third in the Drivers' standings while the now 30-year-old was only fifth behind then Williams driver Valtteri Bottas.

A season and five four races with Daniil Kvyat would ensue before the Russian was demoted in favour of the next big talent in Verstappen, who immediately announced himself by winning his first race with the team in Spain last year.

Some comparisons have been drawn between both Vettel and Verstappen, and the pair have had their share of moments together on the track, but Ricciardo is probably best-placed to compare them.

"I don’t want to take anything away from Seb - he is and was and still is a great driver - but I believe Max is the toughest team-mate. Hopefully, he says the same for me..." the 28-year-old told Channel 4.

This season it was expected both Ricciardo and Verstappen would return to the championship battle with the new rules anticipated to suit Red Bull. Instead, they have been the third-best team, although the man from Perth has a win to his name in Baku.  

If they had been stronger it was thought their friendly relationship could be jeopardised but instead, there has only been one moment of contention between them after colliding at the start in Hungary.

"The marshal was pulling me off the track, I was like ‘don’t touch me’, I really wanted to wait for Max to drive past,” Ricciardo said reflecting on the incident. "In the heat of the moment, I may have said some things… but I still feel that I handled myself all right.

"We’ve moved on. Obviously, I was upset but that was out of my control, so what more can I do? He apologised like a man, that was important. We had a private sit down, pretty much like we are now but without the cameras, and we spoke so that was important."

Looking forward, both are considering their future with the team after this year's disappointment and potential concerns of a future Honda tie-up, should, as reported, current engine supplier Renault does not renew their contract after 2018.

Team boss Christian Horner is relaxed about the prospect, however.

"Well, both of our drivers are currently under contract at least for next year and it’s down to us to produce a good car, be competitive," he said. "Then of course, why would the drivers want to be anywhere else?

Should either Dan or Max go elsewhere, the Briton is unconcerned with Carlos Sainz still in a position to step up after only being loaned to Renault for next year. 

"We’re obviously not short of options on drivers but obviously, our preference is absolutely to retain the two that we have in the car at the moment," he concluded

McLaren Racing Director Eric Boullier has suggested the British team is now ready to supply Fernando Alonso with the competitive car he craves following the engine deal with Renault.

The Spaniard is still yet to commit to a new contract with McLaren for next year, despite the end of the miserable partnership with Honda and the likely attractiveness of working with the company that he won his two world titles with again. 

Alonso revealed he would meet with Renault to gather information on their 2018 engine development before considering all his options on the table but Boullier is confident McLaren and the 36-year-old are both wanting the same thing.  

"He is only interested – and he's been saying this for months – in a competitive car. That is for him," he said in an interview with the official Formula 1 website.

"McLaren's DNA is to be competitive – the team has always been in the top three and we belong there again. Today we know that we have a decent chassis, which would allow us to be in the top three again with an equal level engine, so for us, as a business, it is important to be competitive, no matter what role Fernando plays."

The Frenchman would make it clear that Alonso does still have a significant part to play in McLaren's bid to return to the front.

"We had to make this decision (switching to Renault) for us but if you want to be competitive you not only need an engine, you also need a driver," he said. "That is when Fernando comes into the picture."

Another factor that would determine whether Alonso stays is the state of the relationship between him and McLaren after three tough years, but Boullier brushed aside any thoughts of tension, describing it as "very close".

"Fernando wants to stay. You can see it in his body language and the way he speaks," he added. "There are marketing details that have to be sorted out and that Zak [Brown] is working on."

Formula 1's Motorsport Managing Director Ross Brawn has revealed he is working to see more teams offer Friday Practice outings to F2 drivers in an attempt to build up their experience.

Currently, only a handful of teams, usually linked to an engine partner or driver program, offer the opportunity for up and coming talents to gain important knowledge about the F1 operation both in and outside the car.

Given the stakes of a weekend, none of the top teams ever give up a session to one of their young drivers plus those teams with an established history such as Williams and McLaren.

As the season enters the final stages a few more F2 drivers are earning chances, including Sean Gelael at Toro Rosso and Charles Leclerc at Sauber but for Brawn that is simply not enough and could come with repercussions.

“Putting someone into F1 who hasn’t got the experience is a risk,” he told Autosport. “You have to prepare them as well as possible, maybe doing the Friday morning practice.

“Those sorts of initiatives are important before they get exposed. If they have a problem [and] they get into F1 the wrong way, then their careers could be damaged.

“I don’t think replacing Felipe with an F2 guy would’ve been very fair," he added, referring to Massa having to withdraw in Hungary due to illness, "because they would’ve had very little time to get into the car.

“There’s a better-structured way of doing it, but that’s the sort of thing we want to do. Friday practice – we’ve started looking at more positive initiatives to get the young guys to have an opportunity to drive – that sort of thing [is] what’s being discussed at the moment.”

Brawn would also like to see more drivers use the motorsport ladder to generate a greater profile and fan-base which they can then take into F1, using one of the grid's most popular members as an example.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we had a young guy coming in, he was a star in F3, a star in F2 and then he does a [Max] Verstappen-like entry into F1," he pondered. “That’s what we want to see. By having those races at an F1 Grand Prix, the fans can start to engage with them.

“It has so many benefits – commercially and from a sporting perspective – that we’ve got to make it work.”

Haas F1 Team Principal Guenther Steiner declared the team "half-happy" after Romain Grosjean scored points at the Singapore Grand Prix but fell down to eighth in the Constructors' standings.

The American outfit struggled for much of the weekend at Marina Bay, battling with Williams towards the back of the grid, but in the highly attritional race made the most of the changing conditions and poor reliability to move up and add to their tally.

"We ended up with points so it's a half-happy ending," Steiner told Autosport. "It could have been a lot worse. We didn't make any big mistakes. It's better than to go away with no points.

"You could say you just got points because people dropped out. Yeah, but you need to be there to get them. That's what I say."

He would praise the bravery of his driver Kevin Magnussen, who is involved in several scary moments, including going side-by-side with Felipe Massa in the flat-out Turn 6 in the wet and being the first man to switch to slicks on the damp-ish track in places.

"Our guys did nothing wrong the whole race long," he said. "One of the good moves was when Kevin went onto dry tyres. It was a ballsy move but it worked out.

"Unfortunately, he had an electronics problem. We'll investigate that and why we had to shut it down," he added referring to a late MGU-K issue in the power unit.

The race wasn't without some controversy, however, as the Dane was asked to allow Grosjean through by the team, a call which Steiner would back.

“We spoke with the drivers after the race about the situation because we have to clean the air when we make these decisions, I think we took the right one." he explained. 

“We talked and cleaned the air. That’s what I do with the boys. At least they did not drive into each other or anything else stupid. Perhaps we hurt some feelings, but we explained why and that was accepted.”

Looking forward, Haas' ambitions of finishing sixth in the Constructors' Championship took a hit as Toro Rosso and Renault secured top six places, however, Steiner is hopeful the remaining six races will more favour the team.

"It's these low-speed, high downforce tracks, it's very similar to our Hungary experience," he said, where the team scored no points. "I hope this was the last one and we can get more in the mix with the midfield like we are normally.

"I hope it's the end of our struggles this year."

Former Formula 1 driver and Toro Rosso shareholder Gerhard Berger doubts the top man at Red Bull, Deitrich Mateschitz is getting tired of his investment in the sport, despite speculation of future sales.

The Austrian remains a close friend of the billionaire CEO, despite selling his stake in the junior team back to Mateschitz in 2008 and is, therefore, one of the best placed to analyse the mood towards the current state of F1. 

Recently there has been talk the new Honda tie-up with the Faenza-based team could lead to an eventual sale to the Japanese manufacturer, while Porsche taking over the current Milton Keynes outfit in 2021 is also thought to be a possibility. 

However, the former McLaren, Benetton and Ferrari driver believes Red Bull is not going to give up on the sport yet, despite regular prior threats from advisor Helmut Marko.  

"To think that he is tired of Formula 1, I think is wrong," Berger told the Austrian broadcaster ORF. "Of course, he isn't happy with the current situation of his team but Red Bull is still a super strong team, and even in this difficult time hardly anyone has left, especially Newey at the top."

The main issue Red Bull has constantly aired is the current dominance of engines on performance, which ended their period of success after 2013 and sees them potentially struggling to catch up until new rules in 2021. 

"Not having an engine that can bring title chances is, of course, frustrating in the long term," Berger added.

Nevertheless, he does see positives from Toro Rosso's deal with Honda, believing the two parties can work better together than McLaren did and the opportunity for Red Bull to benefit too.

"Red Bull has always had patience, and now is when it's needed. It cannot always go well," he said "It's a difficult time now, but you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Honda coming to Toro Rosso is the start.

"I believe in Honda, who have a sporting culture in the company, the resources and now a team with the Red Bull mentality. I could imagine Honda returning to its original form and building top engines."

In Singapore, the prospect was raised of Aston Martin increasing their participation, along with the admission they were considering becoming an engine supplier from 2021.

"We have to wait for the new engine regulations," Berger commented. "Until then nobody will burn their fingers on today's extremely difficult engines.

"Does Aston Martin Martin have the resources and the possibilities to do it? I don't know but I doubt it."

Organisers of the Mexican Grand Prix are confident the race will go ahead as planned on October 29th after revealing no damage was sustained to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the wake of the country's terrible earthquake on Tuesday.

Inspections of the venue have been completed in the wake of the 7.1 magnitude tremor, which struck the central part of Mexico the hardest and has killed over 200 people as a result.

However, Director of Marketing Rodrigo Sanchez revealed the renovation work completed to welcome back F1 in 2015 actually helped in this situation and that so far nothing has caused reason for concern.

"I don't think so. If things stay the same, we'll just keep doing what we're doing, keep helping," he said, when asked if the race was at risk. "The track is fine and we just need to refocus and get the show done.

"It's a relatively new circuit. In Mexico, all the new structures are built with that purpose because the chances [of an earthquake] are very high. It's been inspected twice already, from the track surface and also the buildings, and it's OK. So we'll continue doing the assessments as we go but so far there's really no concern, we'll have a race."

Local hero Sergio Perez has already helped the best way he can by donating £125,000 to the disaster relief fund and Sanchez continued by claiming the same atmosphere and passion that has become a hallmark of the race in Mexico City will also help bring the country back together as they recover from the earthquake.

"The Mexican people, in times like this, we bring ourselves together and we know how to move on," he said. "It's important to show our unity, not only amongst ourselves but to the world. So in that aspect, I think we're fine.

"Its times [like this] where you get to sit down and see what all of us are capable of doing. We need to remain together in the bad and the good, not only in the bad. That's a powerful message and something we need to show and I think Mexicans are a good example of that, their pride and their energy.

"The same pride you usually see in the grandstands we are seeing in the devastation zones right now, everyone is not even sleeping, people are staying overnight just to get people out of buildings."