History
The GPDA was founded in 1961 and was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Then, as now, the GPDA's primary objective was to improve and maintain safety standards. This led to boycotts of the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in 1969 and the Nürburgring in 1970 and after 1976.
On the GPDA's formation in May 1961, Stirling Moss was elected chairman. Its initial aims were to obtain representation on the Commission Sportive Internationale de la FIA (CSI), which at the time was motorsport's governing body in order to improve safety standards and provisions for both drivers and spectators. After Moss retired from the sport in 1963, Jo Bonnier succeeded him.
The organisation was disbanded during the 1982 Formula One season due to the effects of the changing commercial organisation of F1 and the conflicts between FOCA and FIA.
The GPDA was reformed over the weekend of the 1994 Monaco Grand Prix by Niki Lauda and Gerhard Berger, following the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, as well as the serious accident of Rubens Barrichello, at the San Marino Grand Prix two weeks earlier (the drivers had proposed its reformation in the drivers' briefing on the morning of the race in San Marino, with Senna being appointed one of its directors just hours before his death). Michael Schumacher was appointed Chairman in 1994, and remained chairman up until 2005.
In 1996, the association was incorporated in the UK as a company limited by guarantee as Grand Prix Drivers Association Ltd. For the first time, the association had a formal constitution, and permanent offices in Monaco.
Read more about this topic: Grand Prix Drivers' Association
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