Haug: Teams may rethink KERS now

That is the view of Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug, who thinks the way that Hamilton's triumph was helped by his KERS allowing him to move up the field may show rivals that they cannot now do without the system now.

McLaren and Ferrari are currently the only teams running KERS, with BMW Sauber and Renault having dropped their systems earlier on in the year.

Haug thinks that KERS' reputation is fast being enhanced, and it may come to a point where other teams can no longer afford not to run it if they are to have a chance of victory.

"I think it is now a different story," he explained. "If KERS helps you to win then it is mentioned. Before it was probably said that the little boys use KERS and the others do not, but I think it is different now. Maybe we will see teams changing to KERS even during this season."

F1 teams have currently agreed to abandon KERS next year, because of the huge development costs, but Haug thinks that even that decision may now be reconsidered - as he hinted at a standard system perhaps being the best way forward.

"Well, if it comes to a KERS competition this will be expensive," he said. "I should be the KERS promoter, but we definitely follow the majority verdict of FOTA. So we will see.

"But I think maybe it is a discussion for later this year about whether a team uses KERS or not, because it is just very convincing. And the Mercedes-Benz hybrid system is the best one, as we showed in Hungary."