Webber: GPDA must continue safety push

That is the view of Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) director Mark Webber, who thinks it is important that his colleagues stand up and make their feelings known if they are ever concerned about safety issues.

"We want the fastest cars, the greatest drivers, plenty of action," he wrote in a column in the paddock newspaper the Red Bulletin. "We'd also like it to be safe - or at least as safe as is reasonable.

"Driving is a risky business and we like to take risks. I'm here to race - I don't want to play lawn bowls every weekend. But if I feel me and my colleagues are in more danger than we need to be, then we have to articulate those feelings."

Webber thinks it is inevitable that at some point in the next decade there will come a time when drivers will have to stand up and even boycott a race if they believe it is not safe enough - especially when bad weather comes into play.

"Conditions would have to be extreme for us to take the ultimate sanction and decide not to race, but I can foresee scenarios where that might happen.

"In fact, you can almost guarantee that some time in the next ten years there will be an occasion when it's just too dangerous to go out on the track. The circuits these days are good, but you can't control everything - the weather being an obvious example.

"Deciding to race here at Interlagos in 2003 was a pretty tough call; the weather was terrible and we didn't have full wet tyres available.

"That's about as extreme as conditions can get before somebody takes the decision to cancel a session postpone for a couple of hours or decide to race on a Monday.

"The pressure to race no-matter what, created by the demands of TV schedules, is a concern for us. Fortunately, in Charlie Whiting, we have a race director who's pretty bloody sensible."

Ultimately, though, Webber thinks the best way forward is for the GPDA to work in close cooperation with teams and the FIA, rather than against them.

"Though it might often seem otherwise, F1 is guided by consensus. Working together as the drivers, our task is to help the FIA, the team principals and many other vested interests to see things from our point of view.

"In the final analysis, we are the experts at driving the cars. In F1 change is inevitable, and we have a constructive role to play in guiding that change and helping the sport move forward."