Bruno Senna Favoured for Belgium

German Nick Heidfeld has been dropped by the Renault team in favour of Brazilian Bruno Senna for this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

Renault made a promising start to the 2011 season but their form has slipped amid rumours of funding shortages, which the team have denied.

While Heidfeld is on a salary, Senna, Renault's reserve driver, comes with several million pounds of sponsorship.

It will be Senna's first race since last season, when he drove for HRT.

The 27-year-old nephew of the late Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna is expected to race for Renault in the eight remaining races this season alongside Russian Vitaly Petrov.

Senna made his debut for HRT last season but left the team after a trying year with the struggling outfit.

He joined Renault this season in the hope that he would eventually be promoted to a race drive.

Heidfeld was drafted in by Renault before the start of the season as a replacement for the team's number one driver, Robert Kubica, who was seriously injured in a rallying crash in February.

The Pole suffered a partially severed hand and leg and arm fractures and is still recuperating and it remains unclear when - or if - he will be able to return to F1.

Kubica's doctors told Autosport magazine last week that he hoped to be fit enough to drive in an F1 simulator by the end of September.

Heidfeld, a veteran of 10 years in F1, was chosen as his substitute because of the 34-year-old's proven points scoring record.

But after a podium in the second race of the season in Malaysia, he and the team have not been able to reach the same heights again.

Nevertheless, Heidfeld has scored points in five further races, and lies eighth in the championship two points clear of Petrov, who is in his second season in F1.

Kubica finished last season eighth in the championship, scoring 136 points to Petrov's 27.

Webber Hints at New Red Bull Deal

Mark Webber has revealed that he is in "positive" talks over a contract extension at Red Bull, despite his grievances over team orders during Sunday's British Grand Prix.

The 34-year-old was unhappy that he was asked not to try to overtake team-mate Sebastian Vettel for second place.

He told BBC Sport: "The team and I are talking about whether I continue with Red Bull in 2012 and it's positive.

"What happened on Sunday does not turn my world upside down."

During the final five laps of the race at Silverstone, which was won by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, Webber was told over the team radio to "maintain the gap" behind Vettel, even though the Australian appeared to have superior pace to the German.

Webber revealed afterwards that he had ignored the order but was unable to pass championship leader Vettel in the final laps and finished third.

Red Bull's explanation for their stance was that they did not want to see their drivers collide and for the pair - and the team - to end up with no points from the race.

Webber and Vettel came together in the Turkish Grand Prix in 2010 - an incident that Red Bull feel is proof that their drivers are allowed to race each other.

However, at Silverstone, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said that, although he understood Webber's frustration, he had to put the team first.

Webber did not agree at the time but, without totally giving way, now appears to have somewhat softened his stance.

He added: "Christian and I had a chat about the situation after the race. We both put our cases forward and I think we came away seeing it from both perspectives.

"It was obviously a difficult situation but I still feel comfortable about what I did.

"In that situation, you are hit by conflicting emotions. You want to improve your position, irrespective of who it is in front of you - especially when it is someone at Sebastian's level, whom you have to work pretty hard to get back on to."

Follow Alex Webber on Twitter @AussieGrit

Alonso Also Concedes 2011 F1 Title

Alonso and Vettel in Valencia 

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso has admitted defeat in the battle for this year's title after Sebastian Vettel's sixth win of the season in Valencia.

Red Bull's Vettel extended his lead in the title race to 77 points after eight rounds, leading from start to finish.

And despite there being 11 races left in the season, Alonso added: "The [title] is not in our calculations.

"If anyone thinks we can win being eight-tenths of a second behind [Red Bull] they don't understand Formula 1."

Vettel and Red Bull have been completely dominant throughout the season.

The 23-year-old has secured pole position in seven of the eight races so far, going on to win six of them, and is the first man to finish first or second in the first eight races of an F1 season.

In total, Vettel has dropped only 14 points all season, and his pace compared to his rivals in the last two races has been even more impressive given that the Canadian and European Grands Prix are not circuits ideally suited to the Red Bull's strengths - in particular on high-speed corners.

But the reigning champion refused to dwell on his championship lead after winning the European Grand Prix.

"If you look at F1 compared to other sports it's a very long season," he said. "You will have some races where it will work and races when you will struggle and it will be difficult.

"I think you need to look at last year as an example. It shows that we [Red Bull] had good races up to a certain point and then things went wrong.

"Of course, our target is to be in the lead and make sure we stay there but the most important race to lead the championship is after the last one."

I think second place is the maximum we can have in these days, so to be here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievementFernando AlonsoFerrari driver

However, with the gap to McLaren driver Jenson Button and Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber now 77 points - McLaren's Lewis Hamilton is 89 points adrift and Ferrari's Alonso 99 points off the pace - Vettel's rivals all believe the race is only on for second.

After the race, Hamilton also conceded that the title may be out of reach, before changing his mind and retracting his comments on Monday via Twitter.

"It's finished really. In the sense of the title it's almost over," said Hamilton on Sunday.

But 24 hours later he said: "To all our supporters, ignore what you read in the papers today. My team will never give up and I will never give up."

Despite this, Hamilton along with McLaren team-mate Button said the team needed to improve the car quickly as the gap between them and Red Bull could be more pronounced in the next race at Silverstone.

"We've taken a step back this weekend - or maybe the others have gone forward," said Hamilton. "I think we're quite a bit down in downforce.

"We haven't made an upgrade on that for several weeks, especially rear downforce, and I think that in the next race we may really struggle again.

"I'm really not looking forward to Silverstone. Ferrari are a lot faster than us and the Red Bulls are on another planet."

Button added: "We need some really good upgrades.

"We need to get our heads down and come up with something - particularly aerodynamically, I think. We need to take some risks.

"There's a big gap behind us to the Mercedes and a big gap in front of us in terms of Ferrari and Red Bull."

Alonso, meanwhile, reiterated his pre-race belief that his focus is solely on beating the chasing pack to second behind Vettel.

"I think second place is the maximum we can have in these days, so to be here between the Red Bull cars is a great achievement today," said the Spaniard.

"Our aim is to fight with the McLarens."