Webber hopes Kubica crash a wake-up call

Webber has expressed frustration in the past that some of the sport's new drivers are not that interested in pushing hard to keep safety at a top of Formula One's agenda.

But with Grand Prix racing breathing a sigh of relief after Kubica escaped with just light concussion and a sprained ankle from his crash, Webber is keeping his fingers crossed that the youngsters may now wake up to the issue.

"Unfortunately, it's nice sometimes to have a little bit of a wake-up call so we can all see that the cars are going very quick," said Webber.

"I'm the same. When I strap myself in the car, I never, ever think about getting hurt because the cars are so safe that we can take really big risks - and that's how it should be.

"But in respect of us trying to put energy into things as an organisation with the FIA, to keep putting things into the sport to make it safer, some of the younger guys might sometimes think that's a bit of a waste of time. But clearly it wasn't a waste of time in Canada."

Although the FIA has received great praise for its work to improve car safety that ensured Kubica did not suffer serious injuries in the crash, Webber still thinks there are lessons that can be taken onboard from the incident.

"What's amazing when you have those types of nasty incidents is that you learn a lot," he said. "I inspected the circuit on Wednesday for the GPDA and saw the things they adjusted from the year before. You try to learn what's possible to make the track as safe as possible - within reason.

"The nastiest thing that happened was that the lip on the side of the track launched Robert in the air. We harp on sometimes about how smooth things need to be on the exits of corners, but if there are ruts we now see what happens. That was something that we all learned.

"I think we learned a lot - the FIA learned a lot from the debris. It's amazing, it could have gone either way for him, I reckon. It was a very lucky escape."

Webber also backs plans to move the wall that Kubica hit nearer the track, to narrow out the angle of impact if a car runs off the track there, as well as adding a fence to the top of it.

"Yeah, they've got to adjust it - 100 per cent," he said. "It's just a question of what we do at other places because it would be stupid; you can't go there with it being the same because we've had a clear warning that it's not good enough. He nearly came over the top - and that would have been a total disaster."