JULY 8, 2005

Do come along to our meeting, Mr Mosley

The Grand Prix Drivers' Association has a meeting planned for Silverstone and has issued a new invitation to FIA President Max Mosley to attend and discuss safety issues with regard to testing. A meeting had been planned but Mosley called it off this week after David Coulthard, the chairman of the GPDA, made some less than complimentary remarks about the current rules and regulations. Mosley said Coulthard had made it impossible for calm discussion.

"We were disappointed with events after Indianapolis," Coulthard said. "We wanted to sit down and talk about it. We thought the best way was to do it face to face but that's obviously not possible."

Another GPDA director Mark Webber was rather less diplomatic.

"The invitation to Max is still there," he said. "He can still come. We want to talk about safety, not about the regulations. We don't want to run the sport."

Webber says that he was not impressed by Mosley's decision to cancel the meeting because the FIA President thought a calm discussion would not be possible.

"Personally I find that a very offensive comment," said Webber. "We are talking about elite sportspeople who have to perform and remain calm under some of the most extreme circumstances. We are not naughty schoolboys!"