Jules Bianchi

[JackFrost]

Japanese GP stopped early due to an accident.

 

Sutil went off at the Dunlop curve and hit the barrier. As the marshalls were clearing his car away it looks like Bianchi has gone off at the same place. It's not been captured on camera but there are big concerns over Bianchi, who has been taken to the medical centre.

 

Looks like the incident is almost exactly what happened to Brundle in '94. Hope Bianchi's ok.

[Colinjb]

Fingers crossed for him. After everything the Marussia team went through with Maria De Villota this would be truly terrible.

 

All thoughts with Jules.

[Colinjb]

Update. He is unconscious, sent to hospital. Nothing more yet at this time.

[JackFrost]

According to Sutil, Bianchi went off and hit the recovery vehicle.

 

Bianchi is unconcious and being rushed to hospital with police escort

 

I really hope he's ok but it doesn't look good.

 

 

 

Also the FIA tried to get the local race organisers to change the start time twice and they said 'no' both times

[Colinjb]

There are a few images on Twitter emerging, looks as though he struck the rear of the recovery vehicle, the front of the car may have tucked under it.

[Lighthouse]

https://twitter.com/search?q=Bianchi&src=tren&mode=photos

 

It looks like he went into the back of the JCB at some point. Not looking good, everything crossed for him. Possibly the most talented of the back markers.

[doubleonothing]

Reports are Bianchi hit a recovery vehicle sideways. The area would have been covered by double waved yellows so he should have been going slower through the are than normal.

 

Conflicting reports coming in about the helicopter. Apparently it could take off by weather conditions mean it might not have been able to land.

 

Hope he's OK. Very talented driver and part of the Ferrari acadamy.

[Lighthouse]

Japanese GP stopped early due to an accident.

 

Sutil went off at the Dunlop curve and hit the barrier. As the marshalls were clearing his car away it looks like Bianchi has gone off at the same place. It's not been captured on camera but there are big concerns over Bianchi, who has been taken to the medical centre.

 

Looks like the incident is almost exactly what happened to Brundle in '94. Hope Bianchi's ok.

 

It will have been, not least by the onboard camera but it just hasn't been broadcast for obvious reasons.

[Picard]

Video of accident can be seen on this page.

 

http://www.lequipe.fr/Formule-1/Actualites/La-video-de-l-accident-de-jules-bianchi/504814

[Goatboy]

Video of accident can be seen on this page.

 

http://www.lequipe.fr/Formule-1/Actualites/La-video-de-l-accident-de-jules-bianchi/504814

 

That was hideous.

[View From The Top]

Jesus Christ!

[Pancake]

****ing hell. ****. Ing. Hell. Christ that shook me up.

 

Why the waves green flag on the tower?

[saintmonkey1979]

I hadn't seen the green flag! That is unreal! Especially as the official story says double waved yellows. Even in good weather it should at least be a yellow flag. Horrifying. Truly horrifying.

[mcjwills]

That was real bad

[View From The Top]

****ing hell. ****. Ing. Hell. Christ that shook me up.

 

Why the waves green flag on the tower?

 

The race was under double waved yellows then. Sure of it.

[Picard]

The race was under double waved yellows then. Sure of it.

 

The accompanying text says the flags went green 10s before the crash as the tractor had left the 'danger area'

[Saint in Paradise]

The green flag is at the station AFTER the incident, which is per protocol - they had not yet deployed the safety car

(single standing yellow + SC board all around the track) and were handling the Sutil car under a local yellow, following

standard protocol. The station upstream is showing waved double-yellow (per FIA standard) as is correct.

[JackFrost]

As Brundle has said, in wet conditions there are times when you can't see your own steering wheel, never mind yellow flags.

 

IF he pulls through I fear it's a career ending crash.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

The impact is not only horrific, it is also rotten luck for the lad. Had his car hit either a few feet to the right or left of where it did (under the overhanging rear mounted engine of the digger) then the consequences may well have been less severe. Although we must also remember that the marshals too are extremely exposed to danger in this situation. How should F1 react to this appalling accident? A few ideas of mine:

 

1 - Rain.

If Bianchi's car aquaplaned off the track when the race was under waved yellow flag and 'safety car' conditions then I expect that there will be calls to eliminate the risk of a recurrence of this incident via the simple expedient of Red Flagging (or indeed never starting) a race when track conditions get that wet. Not a idea I much like whenever it can be avoided.

 

2 - The Cars.

F1 has traditionally always been a sport rooted in open cockpit/open wheel racing cars. It seems to me however that safety might be improved significantly if the sport were to abandon that tradition. I can't see F1 being willing to pay a price quite that high.

 

3 - Recovery.

If it was possible to get a digger into position to remove the crashed car then perhaps it might have been possible to have gotten a mobile crane there that could have removed the car from a safer position behind the barrier. When a car does end up in a place where no crane can reach it, which is inevitable, then short of stopping the race completely (many times potentially) I can't see that very much else can be done. Maybe track-side recovery vehicles could be fitted with 'skirts' to prevent cars going underneath them again.

 

4 - Tracks.

There is always room for improvement I suppose, but the bigger the 'run-off' areas we create then the further the action gets from the (paying) spectators. However, many lovely old tracks may be difficult to adapt.

 

5 - The 'TT' attitude.

It seems to me that bikers die and get seriously maimed in the Isle of Man TT races (in what are relatively substantial numbers compared to other forms of motorsport) and nobody seems to bat a eyelid to the annual carnage. So could F1 just do nothing then and take the consequences that a driver might get killed or seriously injured every decade or so? I don't think so because the sports 'safety first' culture would never tolerate it - and quite right too.

[Barry the Badger]

It's absolutely correct that the sport should reflect on this, but I do hope we don't see any knee jerk reactions. Motorsport is dangerous. I'd hate, for example, to see Villeneuve's suggestion of a safety car every time there's an accident.

 

Maybe that's easy for me to say because I'm not the one driving the things, or having to recover them from trackside.

[JackFrost]

It's absolutely correct that the sport should reflect on this, but I do hope we don't see any knee jerk reactions. Motorsport is dangerous. I'd hate, for example, to see Villeneuve's suggestion of a safety car every time there's an accident.

 

Maybe that's easy for me to say because I'm not the one driving the things, or having to recover them from trackside.

 

Agree entirely, that would ruin the sport.

 

Even with Bianchi's incident, call me old school but their already too strict with driving in wet conditions. It's got to the point where I don't even know why F1 even bothers with full wet tyres now. If the track's apparently only safe enough to race on when drivers are coming in for intermediates as soon as the race gets restarted then why are those tyres even developed?

 

Wet conditions like at Suzuka are part of the sport, always have been and always will be. It depresses me when drivers like Massa are screaming on the radio for the race to be stopped when F1 has had many safe races in far worse conditions. Maybe it's partly due to me being old enough to remember the dark days of F1 in the 1970s but when drivers are moaning about poor visibility in wet conditions, then I'm thinking "Yes, you're driving in rain".

 

They'd be better off getting stricter with the rule where the drivers can't set their fastest time in a sector where a yellow flag is. For example amending the rule so a driver can't be within e.g. 2 seconds of their fastest sector time when a yellow flag comes out. That would force all the drivers to lift off and comparatively cruise past an incident but then they'd be allowed back up to full speed as soon as their past the incident. This, along with keeping mechanical diggers out of the firing line would make a big difference. Also how about looking at the ground clearance regulations in wet conditions, to protect against aquaplaning?

[badgerx16]

Horrendous as it was, this was a freak of circumstance. If the tractor had been 2 metres to the right Bianchi would have hit it head on rather than go under the engine, if it had been 2 metres to the left he'd have missed it. If his trajectory had been 2 degrees either side of the one he took, again he would have missed the tractor.

As for the safety car issue, Sutil crashed on lap 42, afaik Bianchi came off on the lap after, so would the safety car actually have caught him before that corner ?

[Lorne Malvo]

He would have done well to come of this crash other than a dribbling vegetable. Was pretty nasty and lucky to still be alive.

[Joneth]

He would have done well to come of this crash other than a dribbling vegetable. Was pretty nasty and lucky to still be alive.

 

 

I don't think lucky is a good word to use in this scenario. There's a worryingly high possibility that he has suffered a permanent life changing injury, if as you say, he survives.

 

I really hope that he recovers enough that he can still enjoy life.

[Jimmy_D]

Looks like they're heading towards enforcing some sort of speed limit for yellow flags, instead of leaving it to the drivers to slow down.

 

That seems pretty sensible to me, it's in the nature of a racing driver to push the limits of whatever leeway he's given (although difficult to say whether it would have saved Bianchi, they're not saying anything about the crash).

 

Hoping Bianchi pulls through to make as full a recovery as possible, but each day it's more and more worrying

[SO16_Saint]

Could they not put some sort of safety barrier around any moveable / moving recovery vehicles - like a portable tyre barrier if you will, so should a car crash into one again (what are the odds on that, btw) it will be akin to crashing in to a 'normal' tyre barrier

[Barry the Badger]

Could they not put some sort of safety barrier around any moveable / moving recovery vehicles - like a portable tyre barrier if you will, so should a car crash into one again (what are the odds on that, btw) it will be akin to crashing in to a 'normal' tyre barrier

 

How would they move the portable tyre barriers?

 

With a tractor/crane?

[SO16_Saint]

How would they move the portable tyre barriers?

 

With a tractor/crane?

Well yes, which is why I said it would go AROUND the tractor / crane

[hutch]

The egg. It was definitely the egg.

 

Or the chicken.

 

No, it was definitely the egg.

[Jimmy_D]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/30120317

 

Sounds hopeful.

 

Still a long long way to go though.