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Christian Horner has warned Red Bull's rivals that the exhaust system of the RB6 car is not a silver bullet.

At Valencia nearly two weeks ago, Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault got so-called 'blown rear diffusers' up and running on their cars.

And this weekend at Silverstone, the concept is part of McLaren's latest upgrade, with some estimating the laptime benefit at half a second or more.

But Red Bull team boss Horner has moved to play down those predictions.

"Our rivals overestimate the benefits of the blown diffuser," he is quoted as saying by Germany's Auto Motor und Sport.

"It's only about two or three tenths," added the Briton.

The team's German driver Sebastian Vettel agrees.

"It gives us a bit, but only together with the whole package, and that includes our rear suspension. That can't be copied during the season," he said.

The Auto Plus column of French commentator Jean-Louis Moncet reports that, as well as the blown diffuser, McLaren's Silverstone upgrade includes new cooling, suspension and dampers.

Ferrari, on the other hand, is not expecting the fast Silverstone layout to suit the F10, even though the new Arena section features some new slow corners.

"The track seems reasonably similar to the way it was, with a lot of very fast corners, which will not suit us that much," said Fernando Alonso.

Source: GMM

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Red Bull does not share Ferrari's view about the outcome of the recent European grand prix.

Ferrari is still on the warpath about the Valencia stewards' reaction to the safety car period, when Lewis Hamilton passed the AMG Mercedes but received only a drive-through penalty many laps later.

Enraged that the Briton still finished second, the Italian team's website has now drawn attention to a short comment made on RAI radio by Pirelli president Marco Tronchetti Provera.

The Italian reportedly said it was "a chaotic situation which did incredible damage to Ferrari".

But Australian driver Mark Webber says his Red Bull team has a different view.

"For me, everything in that race was fine," he told the BBC. "I can only go on what my team told me ... and they told me the race was handled normally."

Meanwhile, Hamilton says a word of words about the incident with his former nemesis Alonso is now over.

"We (text) messaged the other day, things are cool," the 2008 world champion told Reuters.

"He said everything's cool and he knows how the racing world works and this is a tough year," added Hamilton.

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Ferrari will only get its real blown rear diffuser up and running at a forthcoming grand prix.

It was believed that the Italian team began running the Red Bull-style low exhaust layout at Valencia.

But Germany's Auto Motor und Sport reveals that, in fact, the European GP was only the first phase in a multiple-step development for the F10 car.

The first step was a new gearbox, debuted only by Felipe Massa because Fernando Alonso was in the middle of the four-race mandatory period for his existing transmission.

The Spaniard will get the new gearbox at Silverstone, as well as a new rear suspension layout.

The real benefit of the new gearbox/suspension layout, however, is yet to come.

It is reported that the new layout allows a steeper shape of the diffuser, but the downforce advantage will only come when the exhaust fumes are directed through the diffuser.

Currently, Ferrari is working on ensuring that the blown exhaust does not actually compromise grip due to a sporadic airflow.

It is only at a later date that the entire concept will be up and running.

At Silverstone, the F10 will feature the new gearbox and new housing for the suspension. Ferrari is introducing the update in stages, so that when the final concept is ready, the team does not have to wait for Alonso and Massa to reach the end of their four-race gearbox phases to debut it.

"In Valencia, we introduced significant updates on the F10 and there will be more in Silverstone and the races after that," Alonso confirmed.

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Q: In what ways do you think Lewis Hamilton has improved as a driver since 2008?
JN: I think that as Lewis gets more experience, more miles and more races under his belt, then his confidence is growing. He can be an incredibly aggressive and exciting driver, for example if you look at some of the overtaking manoeuvres he’s pushed this year. I think that makes F1 exciting. For those who detract and say there’s no overtaking, if you look at what Lewis has achieved, it’s been phenomenal. He’s also been more measured about what he wants with the car and working with the team and the development process. So both Lewis and Jenson (Button) are now heavily integrated into the development process, not just weekend warriors for us. They are an important part of the development team. I think Lewis, who’s now in his mid-twenties, is more confident in his own judgement. Being pushed by Jenson, as he has been this year, has brought more out of him. I think it’s good when you have got drivers who are very competitive. There’s been a number of occasions this year when I’ve looked up at the timing system and seen the two markers on our drivers, not just close but swapped round occasionally. I think that’s pushing both drivers and the team to get the best out of the package. What I do like about Lewis is that when he gets out of the car you know he’s left nothing on the circuit - he’s wrung its neck. When you know your drivers are really pushing hard, at 100 percent, it creates a huge motivational factor inside the team.

Q: Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has said that he doesn’t think the blown diffuser actually makes that much of a difference and he thinks teams are placing too much emphasis on this. Do you agree? What are you expecting from the upgrade?JN: I think Christian might be right. I think that in F1 it’s rare to find golden bullets that will suddenly transform your car from something uncompetitive to competitive. We more than most have found within the last year that that’s the case. It’s just straightforward hard work and effort. I don’t think putting a blown diffuser on a car is going to transform it. Not quite perhaps in the way that the shadow diffusers were able to. But it is early days in the development stages of them and I think most teams, including Red Bull, at the last race made quite an impressive change to their diffuser, which gave them a good step forwards. Renault for example did a particularly good job on their diffuser. I would tend to agree with Christian that it’s not a case of bolting on your diffuser and blowing everyone into the weeds. That’s not going to happen. It is one of the things that we are working on at the moment, as part of a package of changes that we are bringing to the next race and subsequent races. In terms of predicting what it can do, I’m not going to be a hostage to fortune. I’ll wait to see what the drivers think about it on Friday, as we haven’t got any real circuit running on it at the moment so I’ll reserve judgement on that.

Q: Could the updates help you draw level with Red Bull - especially over a single lap?JN: That’s our target, but I can’t be that confident as I’m sure Red Bull won’t be standing still waiting for us to catch up. We have managed to close the gap to them in qualifying and we have a competitive racing car, but we don’t yet have the quickest car on the grid. Red Bull may well have that. Ferrari, ourselves and perhaps Mercedes are still pushing to get ahead of them. It’s much better to be on the first two rows, isn’t it?

Q: Now Fernando Alonso has dropped off the pace, do you think it’s a straight fight between yourselves and Red Bull?
JN: No, I don’t! And I don’t think Fernando has dropped off the pace. I think that he’s a great racer and fierce competitor. He’s smarting a bit from what happened last weekend but I’ve every reason to believe that Ferrari will also be bringing a package to Silverstone and he’ll be there or thereabouts. I think it’s way too early to write off Fernando.

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In conversation - Bernie Ecclestone & Ron Dennis

Q: And Ron discovered Lewis Hamilton, whom you described a while ago as a real ‘gift’ for Formula One racing…
BE: Discovered Lewis Hamilton? I think he was just lucky.
RD: It was a far cry from being luck. It was part of our system. For a long time we have supported young talents at McLaren and Lewis was one of them. At the moment we support a young kart driver with unbelievable talent. He is unknown at the moment, but he will make his way up just as Lewis did. Bernie and I have one thing in common - we always want the best for our companies - and have forsaken a part of our private life for it.

Q: Ron, some of the biggest names in Formula One history have driven for you, including Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Niki Lauda, Mika Hakkinen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. How did you handle them, especially as many were team mates at some point?
RD: That depended on the circumstances. They all had very different characters and that is one factor that makes it very difficult to make any judgements. When I started as a team owner I was younger than my driver, Graham Hill, so he showed me the ropes. With Lauda, Senna and Prost I had a sort of comradely relationship - it was again age related. With Hamilton and Alonso it was more of a fatherly tie. Prost and Senna were completely different in their backgrounds and character. They eyed each other suspiciously and didn’t trust each other. I let their track rivalry happen.

Q: What was the problem between Hamilton and Alonso?
RD: It was very simple - Alonso didn’t expect Hamilton to be that competitive in his first year. He told me at the beginning that it was my decision to sign a rookie like Hamilton, but that it could cost me the constructors’ championship. Fernando was calculating everything, but not that Lewis would challenge him. That affected him massively.

Q: What do you make of the driver rivalry at Red Bull that culminated in their crash in Istanbul?
RD: Only that every promoter, including Red Bull, should be happy about it. For weeks they have been in the media. Obviously nothing sells better than ‘bad news’. Am I right Bernie?
BE: Absolutely!

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