What's the 'number one' change F1 drivers want to see in the sport?

The chairman of the Grand Prix drivers association, Alex Wurz, has called on F1 to eliminate sausage kerbs from the sport. Speaking to Racingnews365, Wurz talked about the sausage kerbs being at the top of the list of the things that needed to be changed in the sport.

"From the safety perspective, number one would be elimination of the sausage kerbs. I would maybe hope, with learning about the sausage kerbs being dangerous, we can go back to individual kerbs [designed] track by track. Sausage kerbs have to go, as ramps."

Alex Wurz acknowledged that it's not possible to create a sport that is 100 percent safe. At the same time, he felt that the problem with the sausage kerbs was not that they destabilize a car, but the problem was the change in trajectory.

"We cannot create an environment which is 100 percent safe. It's like the [aviation] industry; you will never have 100 percent safety because the moment you're up there, you have a consequence if something fails. You fall down. In racing, we have the same, but by common sense, we should just make the control mechanisms and the safety networks better. It's okay [for a kerb to] destabilise a car, but it's not okay [for it] to change the trajectory when you're already in trouble."

F1 has seen changes made to the sport by learning from past accidents. One example Alex Wurz cited was from the 1994 F1 Imola weekend (the fateful weekend of Ayrton Senna's death). During the weekend, Rubens Barrichello ran over a kerb and had a massive crash. This led to changes in kerb design in F1:

"This initiated the kerb design changes. [It was] very lucky that he survived, [and] very lucky that there was a safety fence already, because back then it was not normal to have safety fences. Otherwise, [the crash] would have killed all the people behind them."

"On such places, of course, it's good to take away ramps and kerbs, and kerbs should not catapult you. But, with the asphalt zones behind, then [it's] forced that the kerb becomes the decisive separator, and that is a bit of an issue with the thought process."

F1 is in an extremely healthy position right now!

Wurz did, however, acknowledge that the sport is in a healthy position right now:

"At the end of the day, the sport is in an extremely healthy position. Concerns which we had five to 10 years ago, which was that the sport itself is not maximising its potential, that is definitely answered and the direction is very good."

"Now we have to just make sure that, in this phase of [the sport] getting popular, everyone keeps two feet on the ground and realises that we still share the same paddock, we sit in the same boat, we have the same interest."

It's widely known that safety is at the top of Formula One's agenda and it will be interesting to see what safety measures are going to be introduced next.