Formula 1 drivers past and present are using Anthoine Hubert's death in Belgium to renew calls to continue the strive for safety in motorsport.

The French driver was hit by Juan Manuel Correa's F2 car at full speed moments after coming to a stop following his own crash at the top of Eau Rouge on Saturday.

In recent years, efforts have been unrelenting in the push to better protect drivers, including the introduction of Halo last year in response to Jules Bianchi's death in 2015.

And Pierre Gasly, a close friend of Hubert, admits the great reduction in tragedies such as this one can even lull drivers into a false sense of security.

“Over the summer break I was talking about safety [with] people who are not drivers and they were like ‘F1 is so safe now, it’s completely different than it used to be before’,” he revealed to Crash.net. “I must say I agreed with them because it’s not something you think about.

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“When you are in the car, I feel so safe I feel like almost nothing can happen to us, but at these kind of speeds it just brings you back to reality that whatever happens at 200, 250, 300kph, you can do whatever you want, I think there will be always this high chance of death and that’s also something we accept as drivers.

“But unfortunately there was this thing that happened to remind everybody it’s a really dangerous sport. I’m just really sad that it was one of my closest friends in racing.”

For Sunday's race winner Charles Leclerc, Hubert was another friend lost due to racing following his godfather Bianchi and he did praise the work done to improve safety.

“I think everyone is working extremely hard to try and improve the security of the sport which I think should always be the priority but then it will always remain a dangerous sport,” he said.

"Once you are going at these speeds it is dangerous and then here, Eau Rouge is quite dangerous because obviously the wall is quite close, so there will always be some corners which are challenging and that are more dangerous than others.

“But overall I think the FIA has done an incredible job in the last twenty years to improve safety in our cars.”

Triple world champion Jackie Stewart became one of F1's main figures for safety during his era when deaths were more common.

Yet he feels almost revealed a sense that a moment such as Saturday was coming.

"In my view, there have been far too many incidents over the last 24 or 36 months because there has never been a penalty to the extent we saw this weekend," he told PA.

"We have seen wings broken, cars going up in the air. It even happened on Sunday when Max Verstappen collided with Kimi Raikkonen on the first lap.

"The drivers might now be prepared to recognise that they will have to take fewer liberties because you should never start thinking you are bulletproof.

"You cannot think you are going to get off with it all the time. This could be a wake-up call."