Hot on our recent article on Formula One Safety, the issue of the Grand Prix Drivers Association (GPDA) has again been thrown into the spotlight. It seems that the GPDA is going through a rough time right now. Recently Jarno Trulli, Fernando Alsono and Mark Webber has spoken out about the issue by criticising those drivers not in the association. Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa are not members of the GPDA. Also Force India’s Adrian Sutil is not a member.
"There are some drivers who couldn't care less but they take advantage of the work done by others," Trulli told Autosprint. "What these sensationally uninterested drivers don't understand is that the GPDA has a price. We fund it with a fee on the points scored.
"If the top six drivers are the uninterested ones, then there's a lack of money to survive and it's always the unlucky ones, the ones who get paid less, that have to sustain the costs. The figures are little. The entry fee was one thousand dollars, now it's probably one thousand euros, then you pay something like two hundred dollars per point scored.