GPDA director Russell: 'These are drivers' three biggest concerns'

The Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) is the union of Formula 1 drivers. George Russel has been director of the GPDA since 2021 and works alongside Alexander Wurz. Speaking to Racefans.net and others, Russell tells what the drivers' biggest concerns are at the moment.

The GPDA is there so that drivers have somewhere to turn if they are concerned about any issue within Formula 1. Before Russell, the likes of Romain Grosjean, Sebastian Vettel (he is still involved with the GPDA), Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher were already directors of the union.

Russel tells biggest concerns F1 drivers

Russell now has almost three years of experience at the GPDA. He tells what drivers' biggest concerns are: "You’ve got safety – which is obviously, to a degree, quite self-explanatory. You want the circuits to be, to a degree, as safe as possible – no unnecessary risks. There’s always going to be an element of danger and you want the cars to be as safe as possible, naturally, but you’re never going to be able to eliminate all of the risk."

In addition, drivers also think about other things. One example is the perspective of the viewers "You’ve then got the on-track sort of ‘entertainment’ side of things and how exciting the races are, I guess the tyres are a factor with the degradation, the format, DRS positioning, et cetera. Then you’ve got the third one, which is probably the least important but to the drivers is important, about how it feels to drive the cars. We want the fastest cars, the best cars, the lightest cars, the most power and we think that would add to the spectacle. But you can’t often achieve all of these topics," states Russell.