Motor racing's world governing body is working to develop safer crash helmets in Formula One and would also like to replace controversial gravel traps.

"There is a major research programme going on at the moment," International Automobile Federation (FIA) president, Max Mosley, said after delivering a lecture at an international motorsport show in Birmingham yesterday.

"We intend to evolve a completely different level of crash helmet, a much safer device."

Mosley said that the FIA was analysing a range of helmets worn by drivers in crashes and was combining that with information from accident data.

"How the visor works and the whole structure are being looked at very closely," he said.

Gravel traps were criticised after Michael Schumacher's Ferrari sped across one and speared the tyre wall during the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July.

"We've come to the conclusion that we'd like something better but that's as far as it goes," said Mosley.

Meanwhile, Ferrari's sporting director, Jean Todt, yesterday praised Eddie Irvine for coping with the pressure of being Michael Schumacher's team-mate last season.

"Eddie Irvine worked very hard for four years and it wasn't always easy," Todt said.

"It was to Irvine's credit that he handled the pressure right through to the final race."

The Dakar-Cairo Rally airlift over Niger following terrorist threats to the race is going according to schedule, the organisers said yesterday.

Some 300 heavily armed Algerian Islamic militants were reported by the US and French governments to be lying in wait for the rally as it crossed the Sahara.

Three giant Antonov AN-124 transport planes were shuttling between Niamey and the Libyan town of Sabha, where the rally is due to resume on Monday, carrying some 500 vehicles including the 336 still in the race.