According to Alex Wurz (Williams) and Mark Webber (Red Bull), to improve safety standards in F1, the FIA needs to put a stop to any dangerous behaviour in the development series such as GP2.
Romain Grosjean will be back behind the wheel of his Lotus next week in Singapore. The French driver said he learned a lesson by watching the Italian Grand Prix from the garage.
The Lotus driver received a one-race ban following his manoeuvre at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix. Since this sanction, the debate is on regarding aggressive driving.
Former F1 driver and now driver coach at Williams, Alex Wurz told
Reuters: "Things like the start collision with Romain can and will always happen."
Wurz suggested that the FIA has to make sure the same rules and penalties are applied the same way in lesser categories.
"But especially looking at GP2 races, which is the feeder series, the driver standards there are appalling - bad, very bad - and they are coming in to F1. It's something we clearly must work on that the feeder series are very strict and of the same standard as F1. And we have to achieve this and address it very quickly," the Austrian added.
|
Crash at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix. (Photo: WRi2) |
Red Bull driver Mark Webber agrees, the newcomers need to be educated about the dangers and drive correctly.
Pastor Maldonado is another driver who has received several penalties this season. Both Grosjean and Maldonado are, interestingly, two former GP2 champions.
A new "Playstation generation" has arrived. These kids have become used to see racers walk away and escape from massive crashes.
“In the last 10 years, the level of aggressiveness has ramped up a bit just because guys know that usually they'll be able to walk away from a crash,” Mark Webber, wrote in a
BBC column on Wednesday.
“But you can be aggressive and safe or aggressive and unsafe. I've always said F1 is not a finishing school when it comes to racing.”
With the new Pirelli tires and DRS system, it has become much easier to overtake in F1. According to Webber, drivers do not have to be so "desperate" to pass rivals at the start of a race.
"You do need to get involved but some guys are having more incidents than the others and they need to take that on board. We should be the best at what we do, racing in all conditions on all kinds of tracks, and driver etiquette has to match that," said the Red Bull driver.