Trulli elected to GPDA.

Italian driver Jarno Trulli has been elected as one of the directors for the Grand Prix Driver's Association (GPDA) and will now work alongside Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard.

Commenting on the appointment yesterday in the press conference Schumacher said: "The main purpose (for the drivers meeting held at the hotel Colombus in Monaco) was that we voted for a new director and as you may know Jarno Trulli is now the third director. Then we had a couple of internal discussions, certainly concerning safety and circuits. There were a couple of other things which were internal."

The German added: "It's good to get together. We even used the opportunity to talk between ourselves about behaviour on the circuit and so on, which was very good. There's a good understanding between the drivers, although sometimes maybe things get a bit hot in the action but at the end of the day, when we sit together, everybody is very clear and very straightforward."

Trulli replaces Austrian Alexander Wurz and received backing from all the drivers to take over the post. The GPDA was founded back in 1961 by a number of drivers including Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, John Surtees and Bruce McLaren.

Although the organisation somewhat disappeared in the 1980's it was revived in 1994 after the death's of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the San Marino GP. The driver's then elected to be directors were Martin Brundle, Michael Schumacher and Gerhard Berger.

The aim of the GPDA is to improve safety and to act as a point of contact between the FIA - the sports governing body - and the drivers.