Today's Grand Prix winner and the man behind him, McLaren's David Coulthard and Ferrari's Eddie Irvine, criticised the use of gravel traps, rendering them as useless when it comes to preventing the sort of accident Michael Schumacher suffered today.

"The gravel traps, when you are going straight, do nothing," said Coulthard. "When you go straight they are actually worse because you bounce, get air and you don't really slow down."

Schumacher's teammate Irvine added that gravel traps, as they are currently laid out, are insufficient. "We've been saying for years that the gravel traps have to go uphill in order to be efficient," said Irvine. "Currently, they don't do anything. The one [where Schumacher had his accident] didn't slope up and none of them do around this circuit. They are absolutely no good. If it's flat and you spin a little bit and go into it, it works a little bit. But if you go straight in the way Michael went, you are just going to slide along the top."