Formula One news

Stewart: Hamilton should join GPDA

At last weekend's Australian Grand Prix the GPDA invited Lewis Hamilton to join them to talk about the safety in Formula 1. But Hamilton said he was too busy still for joining the GPDA, something Sir Jackie Stewart can't understand.

The GPDA represents the Formula 1 drivers that try to improve safety in Formula 1. In the last 12 months the GPDA have made great strides in improving medical facilities at test tracks for example. According to former Formula 1 world champion Sir Jackie Stewart Hamilton shouldn't wait but join the GPDA and communicate with the other drivers about their own safety. "I'm surprised and disappointed that Lewis has not yet joined the GPDA," Stewart told The Daily Telegraph. "The one thing you have to have among the competitors is good communication. Apart from that you are treated as a group on issues. In my day that was a very important element of getting things done. The GPDA did an immense amount of good. It is wrong and complacent of Lewis not to be involved.

"You have to prioritise your time. He might have to do commercial appearances for Hugo Boss or whoever, but nobody did more of that than I did. That's why I got mononucleosis, and a duodenal ulcer.

"The drivers are the ones out there doing it. When you are out there and somebody tells you that, for example, the barriers at Monza do not need to be further from the chicane than they are now, they don't understand that an interlocking wheel suddenly launches a car in the air and you come down upside down on the top of the barrier."

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