Former grand prix driver and F1 analyst Martin Brundle has hit out at the sport’s struggling teams.

The Briton, who drove more than 150 races in F1 including for McLaren in 1994, reserved his most biting scrutiny for Toyota and Spyker, whose involvement in the sport baffles him.

“It’s difficult to see what Toyota are achieving in F1,” Brundle wrote in the Sunday Times, criticising the Japanese giant for using a “huge budget” for poor pace and reliability.

He said: “It’s going to take a sea change of attitude to make that any different.”

On the other end of the budgetary scale is the backmarker Spyker, for whom Brundle predicts a dim future.

“I don’t quite understand what they are doing in F1,” he said.

“Their owners have all the hallmarks of people who are just passing through. It’s difficult to see how they can move forward.”

Brundle manages Red Bull’s David Coulthard but he says the energy-drink owned team have gone down the wrong path with the woefully-unreliable seamless gearbox.

“They should really have bought that technology in rather than do it themselves,” he said.

Countryman Brundle even dares to pore over rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton’s season, observing that the McLaren driver “slipped badly off the pace” at F1’s two recent grands prix.

He said: “Something is wrong there. I don’t know whether it’s the distractions or pressure or just coincidence, but Hamilton needs to get his programme back on track at the Nurburgring next weekend.

“At Silverstone it was explained away as saving the engine, but when you are chasing a championship you must stay right on your rivals, pressuring them into errors, and ready to pounce if they have contact or reliability problems in the closing stages.”

[GMM]

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