Gene has fears over F1 speeds

Gene, who subbed for Ralf Schumacher in last year's Italian Grand Prix while the German recovered from injuries sustained in a testing crash, said he thinks something should be done to reduce speeds. Jarno Trulli, one of the directors of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, had previously called for changes before the situation gets out of hand.

"The cars are getting faster, especially in the high-speed corners," Gene told autosport.com. "It is getting quite dangerous, because the cars are very difficult to correct going that quickly. The tyres are at their limit with so much downforce, although I think that the speed is coming more from the tyres than the downforce.

"The cars are a lot more physical to drive. Look at the accidents of Ralf [at Monza] and Ralph Firman [during practice in Hungary] last year. I've been thinking about this for over a year now, and if we don't do something, someone will be hurt."

The sport's governing body, the FIA, has already called upon the F1 technical working group to come up with a solution to lower speeds. Any decision would, of course, take some time to implement.

For example, Bridgestone sources have told autosport.com that adding an extra groove to the tyres would take at least a month and half to put in place before track testing could commence.