The Grand Prix Drivers Association presented a four-point plan for improving Formula 1 in a meeting about the 2021 regulations this week.
GPDA directors Romain Grosjean and Sebastian Vettel represented the drivers in the meeting in Geneva on Tuesday, after Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg and the organisations’s chairman Alex Wurz attended a previous gathering in Paris last month, along with the FIA, F1 and the teams.
“It was long, but it was very important that the drivers were involved,” said Grosjean when asked by Autosport about the Geneva talks. We’ve got four really clear points of where we want to go, and there were discussions of a few things that we thought were completely useless to us in terms of making the show better. So we just need to keep on going on those four points, and make sure we keep the pressure on and help F1 to get better. Four points presented by the GPDA, and four points that we’ve agreed on with every driver. It’s difficult to go there when there is a question of the scope of the discussions with the others, because then it’s your personal opinion. So it’s a matter of the GPDA, 51% of the drivers say this is the direction we want to go, and this is the direction we want to go.”
Elaborating on what the drivers agreed on, he said: “Out of four points from the GPDA number one is the tyres. Number two is the aero. Number three is the weight, and number four is money between the teams. So if you solve those four points, I think it will be fucking good.”
Asked if the others present at the meeting had listened to the drivers, Grosjean replied: “Very well. Jean Todt has been very supportive.”
He said drivers are keen to have refuelling reintroduced in order to create a lower starting weight: “Nothing is agreed. The GPDA, we want it, not because we think it’s great for racing, but we need to help to bring the weight of the car down,” Grosjean explained – “So it’s just a temporary fix to help make the cars 70kgs lighter or 60kgs at the start of the race, and not overheat the tyres.
When I started in 2009 (pictured above) it was 605kgs, and now we’re 740-something. So it’s 140kgs and you can feel the cars in the low speed corners are very heavy, and the start of the race is even more – it’s 850, or something like that. We just feel it’s too much for a Formula 1 car. I know we’re talking about an 18 inch tyre, which is another 25kgs; a standard brake system, which is another 8kgs. So you are actually adding and adding, while what we want is to bring the weight down.”
Grosjean added the drivers had even proposed a different engine formula.
“This we were told was not an option!” he joked – “It’s the first thing we brought up, have a V10 and you save 150kgs.”
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