FORMULA 1: JENSON BUTTON COULD REPLACE WILLIAMS' VALTTERI BOTTAS

Jenson Button has emerged as a potential target for Williams next season if they lose Valtteri Bottas.

Bottas, on whom Williams have a contractual hold, is Ferrari's number one option should they decide not to retain Kimi Raikkonen alongside Sebastian Vettel.

Sources close to the deal say Ferrari and Williams have discussed Bottas's transfer but have no agreement yet.

Williams view Button as a leading candidate should Bottas leave.

Should the 2009 world champion join Williams in 2016, it would bring his career full circle.

He made his F1 debut for Williams in 2000 before moving on to Benetton/Renault, BAR - which became Honda and then Brawn - and finally McLaren in a career in which he has won 15 grands prix.

McLaren have not yet decided who they will pick to drive alongside Fernando Alonso in 2016.

The team have a contractual option to retain Button, which means that the 2009 world champion cannot join another team unless McLaren decide not to keep him - or fail to decide until after whatever date is set in the contract as the team's deadline to do so.

Their other options are their Danish reserve driver Kevin Magnussen, who raced for McLaren alongside Button in 2014, and the Belgian rising star Stoffel Vandoorne, who is leading the GP2 championship. McLaren have contracts with both men.

Williams said they could not comment on driver contracts and Button said he had not yet considered his future.

"I've had a lot of questions thrown at me about what I am doing next year but I have not thought about anything, seriously," the 35-year-old said.

"I just have to get my head down and concentrate on improving the car and then in a couple of months we will sit down and talk about next year."

Bottas, on whom Williams have an option for the next two seasons, said he "did not know" whether he would be at Williams next season.

"Nothing is confirmed," the Finn said. "We have to wait and see. As a driver, you want to know as soon as possible but sometimes you have to wait."

Although Ferrari have pursued various options, sources close to the team say they have decided to put off a decision on Raikkonen's future until later in the summer.

Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne said last month that Raikkonen's "future is in his own hands" amid concerns at the team that he is not performing well enough compared to team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

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FELIPE MASSA: DRIVERS WILL FOCUS ON JOB WHEN RACING AT HUNGARIAN GP

Felipe Massa says drivers will race as hard as ever at this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, despite the death of "great friend" Jules Bianchi.

The Frenchman, 25, died on Friday from severe head injuries suffered in last year's Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

Brazilian Massa suffered a fractured skull during qualifying in Hungary in 2009 after a spring hit his helmet.

"I don't think anything changes. When you close your visor, you want to be the best," said the Williams driver.

"I had my accident and when I pass that place I don't remember it.

"I don't ever think 'I have a mother or father or son or wife'. You just think about your job."

Bianchi had been in a coma since crashing his Marussia into a recovery vehicle at last October's rain-hit race.

Massa, who says he expects to stay with Williams in 2016, is "not completely against" closed cockpits in Formula 1 "if it's best for everyone and doesn't change the aspect" of the sport.

The 34-year-old, who attended Bianchi's funeral in Nice on Tuesday, said he would "have Jules on my mind all the time" when he is not racing in Hungary.

He added: "It was so difficult to be there in church. It was so sad but I am sure he is in a good place now and looking here at all of us."

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DAVID COULTHARD COLUMN: F1 WILL NEVER ELIMINATE ITS INHERENT DANGER

Formula 1 is no stranger to tragedy, and the death of Jules Bianchi from injuries sustained in a crash in last October's Japanese Grand Prix is a reminder that danger is never far away, however distant it might appear.

Over the last two decades, F1 had become accustomed to seeing drivers walk away or emerge uninjured from very big accidents, such as Robert Kubica's barrel roll in Canada in 2007 or Mark Webber's somersault in Valencia in 2010.

That is testament to the work done to improve safety following the terrible events of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, at which Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed in two separate accidents and three other serious incidents provided a wake-up call for everyone involved.

The lessons of that weekend in Imola have never been lost on those in positions of influence in F1.

Any incident such as that inevitably leads to a period of introspection, and further changes have been made as a result of Bianchi's tragic loss.

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FORMULA 1: CRACKS APPEARING BETWEEN HONDA AND MCLAREN

Fernando Alonso scored his first point for McLaren-Honda at the British Grand Prix. That one sentence sums up just what a dire situation that team are in at the moment.

It has taken nine races for a man many regard as the best driver in the world, in a team that has the target of winning championships, powered by an engine produced by one of the world's leading car companies, to score a single point.

It became obvious at Silverstone that cracks are appearing in therelationship between McLaren and Honda - just seven months into a 10-year contract.

When the partnership was announced, McLaren chairman Ron Dennis talked of repeating the domination of the last McLaren-Honda era in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

But this Honda is not the same as that Honda.

On and off track there is more competition now. Back in 1988, when McLaren-Honda won 15 of the 16 races, only Ferrari had a turbo engine, but it wasn't as good as Honda's and Ferrari's drivers were not as good as Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

In the road car marketplace, Honda has been overtaken by Nissan and is now the third-biggest Japanese manufacturer, not the second.

Back then, Honda used their racing programme to filter through engineers so they gained experience. It was very much an engineering-led company. Now, its ethos seems to have shifted.

If you look across motorsport, Honda is struggling everywhere except the British Touring Car Championship.  Honda does not seem to be the same company with the same racing spirit it had in the past.

Honda only started developing this F1 engine just over two years ago. Mercedes worked on its turbo hybrid F1 engine for four years before the rules changed in 2014. That lack of preparation by Honda is showing.

It is quite clear to everyone in F1 that the Honda engine is responsible for the vast majority of McLaren's performance shortfall to Mercedes.

I suspect Honda realise that, too - if they do not, they're blind - but there is not a lot of evidence so far that they know how to fix it.

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FORMULA 1 ROUND-UP: JULES BIANCHI, KIMI RAIKKONEN, VETTEL, RED BULL

A sticker paying tribute to Bianchi will be made available to all F1 drivers in Hungary this weekend, courtesy of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association.

World champion Lewis Hamilton has asked his Twitter followers to help  with ideas for his own sticker in memory of Bianchi.

Manor driver Will Stevens tweeted: Arrived in Hungary for what's going to be an emotional weekend, but we race on! That's what we do and what Jules would want! #JB17 #CiaoJules."

Other news

Kimi Raikkonen is as fast as four-time world champion team-mate Sebastian Vettel but the German "almost never makes mistakes", according to Ferrari's technical director James Allison.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner says he has "absolutely no doubt" the team "will get back to the front". (Daily Express)

Renault would receive a significant financial bonus by being declared an historic team should it decide to again become a works marque in Formula 1, according to the sport's boss Bernie Ecclestone. (Autosport)

Ecclestone will decide whether current suppliers Pirelli or Michelin will provide F1's tyres from 2017. (F1i.com)

Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo has posted his first message on Instagram.

Lotus's Romain Grosjean, meanwhile, posted an image from "beautiful Budapest".

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FORMULA 1: HOW WILLIAMS BLEW CHANCE TO WIN BRITISH GP

Williams have re-established themselves as the next best team behind Mercedes as the Formula 1 season reaches its midpoint around the two races in July.

At last weekend's British Grand Prix they were clearly the second quickest car, decisively ahead of the Ferrari, until the rain came - and that puts them back where they were at the end of 2014.

They were leapfrogged over the winter by Ferrari, after the Italian team made a major improvement to their engine and a more subtle one to their car.

But a significant upgrade package introduced by Williams in Austria, the race before Silverstone, and then developed further for Silverstone, has put Williams back in the game.

Considering the resources they are working with - a budget of no more than half of that of Mercedes and Ferrari - that is a remarkable achievement.

And it gives them a strong foundation to head to the next race in Hungary on 24-26 July with every confidence that they can finish at least third in the championship again, if not potentially think about challenging Ferrari for second.

That will put them in a much more comfortable position financially going into 2015 and give them the chance to keep building on the revival they have been going through since the start of last season.

Team orders - the right call in the wrong way

That's the positive. The negative is that Williams will have come away from Silverstone a little bit disappointed about both their result and their handling of the race on the way to it.

They were running one-two for the first 19 laps but they ended upfinishing fourth and fifth, having been leapfrogged not only by the two Mercedes cars but also Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari.

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