Following the European Grand Prix in Baku a number of figures within the sport have backed Lewis Hamilton’s plea to lift the current radio ban during races. Hamilton was left with a technical issue throughout the race which could have been rectified if the team was able to assist over the radio. The F1 governing body which administers the rules and regulations, FIA, limited the use of radio communications during the race last year. A team is not able to assist a driver in changing engine settings or modes during the race. Hamilton had an engine mode setting that was incorrectly configured by his team which meant he was unable to get assistance to change the mode back to the correct setting. This meant Hamilton was down on power for a majority of the race. Hamilton has since called for these team radio restrictions to be lifted citing that trying to resolve the problem by himself was dangerous as he had to constantly look down towards the steering wheel which affected his concentration levels. After the race on Sunday Hamilton said,  “I was just looking at my steering wheel for a large portion of the lap. All the way down the straight just looking at my wheel. I didn’t know what the problem was so I didn’t know if I had done something to make it not work. All they can tell me is there is a switch error, wrong switch position, so I am looking at every single switch thinking, am I being an idiot here? Have I done something wrong? I hadn’t.” Team boss Toto Wolff also backed Hamilton saying the drivers are not engineers and should focus on the racing “Today’s cars are very complicated – very sophisticated technology-wise – so it is not that I am complaining – quite the opposite, as it is the same for everybody. But I think that Ferrari had a similar issue so you can do two things: make the technology much less complicated – and I don’t think that this is the right direction – or just change the regulations so that you can communicate with the driver in case there is a problem.” Sebastian Vettel joined in the radio restriction debate “Well if you want my honest opinion I think it’s a joke because it doesn’t really change much. There’s a lot of stuff that you would like to ask and you can’t. Equally I think there is a lot of stuff that the team would like to tell us.” Fernando Alonso was also scathing of the FIA’s decision to limit team radio during races “They give us a spaceship to drive, with the technology we have, and now we have no information available. From the beginning this rule was not making much sense. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what is happening with the car, and what solution to do. Maybe in the future we can address this.” said the Spaniard.