Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

These are critical days in the Formula 1 future of Vitantonio Liuzzi. At the Hungaroring, with new and highly rated long-term signing Sebastian Vettel alongside, he was fighting for his career.

With confirmation that Sebastien Bourdais has now been signed to drive alongside Vettel next year, the pressure for Liuzzi in the remaining races will be yet more intense.

But these seven races alongside the highly rated German are a great opportunity for him to change perceptions - and Liuzzi needs to do that because the perception of his ability probably falls some way short of the reality.

Perception is all in the F1 driver market and very little analysis seems to be applied by most of the teams. That perception is invariably linked with the quality of machinery and the Toro Rosso he's been driving for the last couple of years hasn't been great.

Similarly, it would be fair to say that as a result of jumping straight into a BMW as a third driver last year, the perception of Vettel's level is way higher than that of Liuzzi's. As Hungary suggested, however, it ain't necessarily so.

As Vettel was welcomed to Toro Rosso in Budapest, Gerhard Berger made the point that contrary to what might be imagined for a 20-year-old beginning his first full-time grand prix ride without ever having driven the car, there was actually no pressure.

He'd been signed for the balance of this season and throughout 2008, so there was time to build the relationship, to progress together. Sebastian could relax in the knowledge that he was considered very much as part of the team's future.

What was left unsaid was how much this contrasted with Liuzzi's position. Given that his team-mate Scott Speed had just been unceremoniously sacked for claimed lack of performance and that Berger had repeatedly bunched Speed and Liuzzi together when he spoke of his disappointment in driver performance, the signs were clear. Although Berger then said that nothing was decided and that Tonio still possibly had a future with the team, Bourdais had already tested for Toro Rosso at Spa the previous week.

That Spa test illustrated just how important perceptions are. The headline lap time figures showed that Bourdais lapped a few tenths faster than Liuzzi. What they do not show was that a mix-up in the garage resulted in Liuzzi running with 20kg more fuel than was intended when that time was set. Making the appropriate corrections for the respective weight of the cars, Liuzzi was actually around 0.6 seconds faster than Bourdais.

No disgrace in that for Bourdais, straight from Champ Car. But the true picture of that test is now irrelevant. Because the perception is that Bourdais was the quicker guy, thereby just adding to the perception that Liuzzi wasn't doing the job - how could he be when someone could come straight in from another category and be instantly quicker in the same car?

Another perception is that Liuzzi crashes a lot, something that Berger has repeatedly laid at his door. Well, let's have a look at that. He's crashed this year at Monaco, Canada, France and the Nurburgring. At Monaco it was as a result of being hit from behind by David Coulthard on the opening lap at Massanet.

In Canada he caused one of the race's four safety cars when he hit 'champions wall' when running in the points - something for which he was badly berated by the team. This one is disputed. Tonio is adamant that the suspension broke - probably as a result of the Kubica accident debris that had been lodged in there for many laps - and caused the accident.

The team are equally adamant the only suspension breakage on the car was impact damage. In France he was hit from behind at the first corner by Anthony Davidson. At the Nurburgring he was one of the five cars stuck in the turn one gravel as the storm hit - but it has been established beyond dispute that the off was caused by a failure of the diff and traction control.

But in issuing a press release afterwards with only the words 'Nothing To Say', the team helped cement the impression that it was simply 'another of Tonio's accidents'. Hardly fair, or accurate.

How good is he really? I honestly don't know. But for sure he's better than his F1 reputation and I'm quite intrigued by how he will stack up against Vettel. Hungary was hardly a fair comparison from Vettel's perspective, because it was literally the first time he'd ever driven the car. But for the record, Liuzzi was decisively faster.

In the first Friday practice Vettel was quickly down to a time and Liuzzi came out for his first run as a man on a mission. He made an over-commitment into a corner on his first flying lap, had a big moment, and the resultant lap was 0.4sec slower than Vettel's. But then he strung a more representative lap together - one that was 0.5sec faster than Vettel's.

He then suffered a transmission glitch that consigned him to the garage for the rest of the session, but Vettel never did beat his time. Into the second session Liuzzi was ahead by just hundredths, on Saturday morning he was faster by 0.5sec again. Into qualifying Vettel made a critical mistake on his lap and didn't graduate from Q1.

Liuzzi was 0.4sec quicker and made it into Q2. In the race Liuzzi retired with electronics failure, having been stuck the whole time in a queue behind the heavy cars of Takuma Sato and Felipe Massa. He didn't get a single lap in clear air so no significance can be attached to his fastest race lap - which was 0.5sec slower than Vettel's. Vettel ran a couple of cars behind but made it to the finish.

With more time in the car Vettel will for sure find more speed in the remaining races. Then we can make a fuller analysis of just where Liuzzi stacks up, can make a call on whether the devastating kartist and dominant Formula 3000 champion has really translated those skills to F1.

And whether the perception the F1 world has had of him these past couple of years is in fact completely wrong. If he can change that, might he find himself in one of several F1 seats that are still open for next year? There's almost as much intrigue down this end of the grid as up the front. Almost.