As he heads towards his seventh World Championship crown, and whilst his brother recovers from injuries sustained in the United States GP at Indianapolis, Michael Schumacher has called on F1 team bosses and the authorities to cut speeds.

Speaking ahead of this weekend's French GP, the German said: "We want to improve the show but safety always has to come first. The only time drivers think about the dangers is when they are very close to having an accident.

"All the teams constantly develop a car to make it go faster," he continued. "What we have to do is maybe find more drastic steps to slow them down. There should be less speed but it has to be done appropriately. Generally we feel safe in what we are doing because it's different to motorcycle racing. We tend to do things to the limit, not over it."

Referring to his brother's recent crash, the German said: "There could be another death if speeds are not slowed down. What happened to Ralf is a warning signal."

However, Schumacher's view isn't shared by all his colleagues.

"If I feel that Formula One is too quick then I will stay at home," said Toyota's Olivier Panis. "We need to have quicker cars in Formula One because that's why we're here, why we like Formula One and everybody else too and also we need to have some fighting, some overtaking even with drivers who perhaps take some little bit of a risk.

"This is Formula One for me," he continued. "If you need to make a rule for speed, a rule for overtaking, a rule for everything, there's no point at the end of the day."

While Jarno Trulli, a leading light in the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, sided with Schumacher.

"Formula One cars are very quick," said the Italian, "we need more safety and we need to slow them down.

"I think the FIA has to work to slow the cars down and to give more safety to the drivers and the spectators," he added.

"No-one wants to return to the time when we lost two drivers in one weekend," the Renault star continued, "so we want make Formula One as safe as possible."