How the GPDA has made F1 a safer place

The losses of Dan Wheldon and Marco Simoncelli, both high-profile racers whose deaths grabbed news headlines around the world, have given all competition drivers good reason to pause and contemplate their own mortality. Even those who didn't know either Wheldon or Simoncelli were affected by what happened at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Sepang and, as this week's AUTOSPORT magazine explains, the Grand Prix Drivers' Association has already requested that studies and reports into Wheldon's crash be supplied to them.

The GPDA is sometimes described as the Formula 1 drivers' trade union. In its original guise, from 1961 until the early 1980s, this was a more accurate characterisation. Today, the GPDA, which was reformed under Michael Schumacher's stewardship in the wake of the tragic 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend, is focused solely on safety. It's an organisation that flits in and out of the public consciousness, with events such as Felipe Massa's potentially life-threatening crash in qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix pushing it to the top of the news agenda. For the rest of the time it keeps a low profile, but that's not so say it isn't working hard.

The GPDA in 1960s mode was more of a drivers' trade union © LAT

Rubens Barrichello, the most experienced F1 driver in history, is its current chairman, bringing to the role the wisdom that only age and maturity can. While Barrichello's 19 seasons in F1 have passed without serious injury to him, he has witnessed enough crashes, near misses and deaths - not just to Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, but also to marshals Graham Beveridge (who was killed during the 2001 Australian Grand Prix) and Paolo Ghislimberti (who lost his life at the 2000 Italian Grand Prix) - to realise that you can never afford to relax on safety.

These latest tragedies, which happened outside of the bubble of F1, may just act as a wake-up call to some of the younger drivers.

"It's like you need to have a big shunt before you realise something can happen," says Barrichello. "You can see it with Sergio Perez after Monaco - he is much more active in the GPDA meetings. It's just the nature of life. As human beings, we always think that things won't happen to us before they actually do.

"Everywhere we go, there are differences in cultures, but as human beings all over the world we always think that it's not going to happen to us."

Perez's shunt is undeniable proof of the advance in safety in F1 in recent years. He lost control under braking on the bump heading into the chicane, hitting the outside wall before striking the energy-absorbing Tecpro barrier. The peak of the impact was reckoned by the FIA to be at 80g, and yet Perez escaped with only concussion. It kept him out of that weekend's race plus the Canadian Grand Prix two weeks later, but that was nothing compared to what happened to Karl Wendlinger, who had a similar accident for the same team 17 years earlier.

Techpro is becoming more common at circuits at the GPDA's request © LAT

Perez's accident was described by an FIA technical spokesman as sharing "many similarities with Wendlinger's". This left the Austrian in a coma and effectively finished his F1 career (his comeback attempt was abandoned after just six starts in 1995), and the accident played a part in the introduction of raised cockpit sides and carbonfibre helmets.

Even if young drivers such as Perez recognise the importance of the GPDA, it's down to the more experienced pilots to lead. While it's tempting to imagine that the GPDA just requires a meeting on each grand prix weekend, Barrichello devotes a significant amount of time to it.

He's quick to point out the value of the input of the younger drivers - Sebastian Vettel, for example, is, alongside Massa, a director of the GPDA - and is keen to stress that he isn't criticising, but it's a role that requires a degree of patience.

"There are kids who have a good vote on everything," he says. "But the job is about so many emails and so many things that, together with the normal programme we have, sometimes it's a pain to answer everything!

"After you finish the race on Sunday night, you already have some emails asking how the track was, for opinions on things, what to write to Charlie [Whiting, FIA technical delegate]. It's quite intense and takes a good hour of my day. I do regular reports and it takes time.

"If you gave that to me when I was 20, I wouldn't bother! Everything was safe when I was 20! You need someone experienced for this. I was bored so many times in the past with things like this, but when I was voted to be chairman I took the chance and I can write straight to the drivers, straight to the FIA and I can have a word with Charlie [regarding safety matters]."

Without Tecpro, Perez's crash could have had far worse consequences © LAT

The GPDA also creates an environment where drivers can act independently of their teams. In this week's AUTOSPORT magazine, Barrichello explains that the engineers can't be the only people to make choices about the safety of the drivers, and cites the ban on DRS use at Spa's Eau Rouge as an example where the safety agenda is well-represented by the GPDA.

"The GPDA works only for the safety of the circuits and of the drivers," explains Barrichello. "We don't work on anything else. If ever an engineer could sit on our car when we go through Eau Rouge flat with the DRS open, they would understand straight away.

"I think Red Bull could have gone through Eau Rouge with the DRS open, but Seb and Mark Webber voted not to do it because they realised that it might be dangerous. That's why the GPDA is very good. This is a sport in which we try to beat each other, but we need to have respect."

But what of the wider challenges facing the sport? Over the years, significant safety strides have eradicated what could be considered as the main causes of death. Fires in F1 are very rare and invariably put out almost instantaneously, the HANS device is a remarkable innovation that prevents the basal skull fracture, which has claimed so many lives, and improvements in the strength of the chassis mean that drivers are no longer threatened with cars that disintegrate around them.

But there's still room for improvement. Concerns about a driver's exposed head were thrown into sharp relief by Massa's accident, and ongoing discussions about canopies and deflector technology could lead to further improvement on that score. But for Barrichello, it's the unexpected that is the biggest concern.

"We are very well-covered when we have big accidents where you know you're going to crash," he says. "It's pretty safe with the Tecpro barriers and we are trying to introduce that at all of the circuits, but it's a bit difficult with the money involved. All of the new circuits are built with it, though.

Barrichello is GPDA chairman © LAT

"When you know where you're going to hit, it's okay. The places that are quite dangerous are the ones that you don't know you're going to hit, where you have fences to stop you going into lakes, and kerbs such as in Canada where you can get airborne. Things like this can get better."

While Barrichello clearly revels in his role as head of the GPDA, which he has held since Nick Heidfeld stood down on his racing return to F1 with Sauber late last summer, he has no intention of making it a permanent appointment. With his remarkable F1 career increasingly likely to come to a close at this month's Brazilian Grand Prix, he rules out any ongoing role if he does stop driving.

"I don't think so," he says. "I would love to help at any point when I receive a call, but I have a feeling that when I'm done with F1, I'm going to be a spectator. I will miss the races, so I will probably come to some, but I won't have an influence unless someone wants me to."

As head of the GPDA, it's clear that his current influence is sufficient to advance the cause of safety. In harness with the FIA, the GPDA has been a significant force for good since it was reformed. Long may that continue.