Sir Jackie Stewart has said that modern F1 drivers are taking too many risks with each other's safety, citing the British GP incident between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton as a good example of that.

The three-time F1 world champion raced in an era where serious crashes and deaths were far too common, and he has been a pioneer for safety in the sport ever since after growing sick of seeing many of his contemporaries taken before their time.

Indeed, the sport now is a far safer place to be but the dangers of motorsport should never be played down, and Stewart is concerned that perhaps that is getting a little bit forgotten given the advances that have been made in helping the drivers clamber out of wrecked cars following a big shunt.

In the last two races, we've seen crashes on the opening lap with the Hungaroring seeing several fall foul of Valtteri Bottas' mistimed braking at the first corner whilst, of course, at Silverstone we saw Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen come together at Copse corner, a crash that sent the Dutchman piling into the barriers.

Indeed, Stewart believes the drivers are taking more liberties than they used to, and expressed his concern when speaking to talkSPORT earlier this week:

"Lewis' incident with Verstappen was very upsetting to me. Frankly, if that had been in my time and just after my time, Verstappen would not have survived. The race track has been made so safe by now, the run-off areas so big, and the structure of the car he [Verstappen] ended up coming to a stop with and even then the g-forces were huge. I think that was a good example of what Silverstone has done to make the track safer.

"But drivers take more liberties today than they used to because the penalties are not as big," the Scot continued. "Now it is so safe that I think drivers are taking too many risks. The first laps at Silverstone were a good example of that because I think both drivers were driving too fast, especially considering it was only the start of the race. We need to address that again and unfortunately sometimes it takes a big, big action or even a life to really get that understood."