Jules Bianchi Suffers Severe Head Injury

[truefan72]

For those who do want to see the video there's a one here. http://m.liveleak.com/view?i=818_1412603603

wow that was awful

I can only surmise that something went wrong with his car. there seems to be no way with double waved yellows he would travel straight at that rate of speed
i know the conditions played their part, but everybody was slowing down but he wasn't. it seems like he was still going at full speed
now that i've seen it, the injuries and his condition i suspect are much worse than i though.

Hang in the Jules and make a full recovery!

[Norwegian Blue]

It's incredible that one of the marshals around sutils car were hurt... you can see them scrambling...

[Storm]

Not all. At least not on Spanish sports newspapers sites.
balls :/

useless MD/Marca videos are always geo specific


That video is something though...what is mind boggling is that the marshall above the crane/tractor thingie is STILL waving his stupid green flag after Bianchi hits


Thinking again, after the Sutil crash, automatically that corner had yellow flags, then who decides (the marshall or race control?) to wave green flags at the SAME corner when the car is actually being moved by an external vehicle inside the barricades?

[keysersoze]

The team's insistence that news be delayed until the family has had a chance to arrive to Japan . . . does not sound good. I hope and pray that I am wrong.

[anfield5]

wow that was awful

I can only surmise that something went wrong with his car. there seems to be no way with double waved yellows he would travel straight at that rate of speed
i know the conditions played their part, but everybody was slowing down but he wasn't. it seems like he was still going at full speed
now that i've seen it, the injuries and his condition i suspect are much worse than i though.

Hang in the Jules and make a full recovery!

I doubt there was a car issue, with the green flag being shown he would have got back on the gas, and in all likelyhood simply aquaplaned on standing water, if this happens, no amount of steering imput or brakes would alter the trajectory of the car.

Hopefully Jules will recover, but after seeing footage of the accident....

[steveaki13]

usel

Thinking again, after the Sutil crash, automatically that corner had yellow flags, then who decides (the marshall or race control?) to wave green flags at the SAME corner when the car is actually being moved by an external vehicle inside the barricades?

I would assume the camera angle is deceiving. I assume he was the marshall post beyond the incident (thus green flags to say "you are past the accident"

If not, its some dumb ass marshalling right there

[MrJan]

I wonder whether a system like we saw at Le Mans this year, where there are specific caution zones, would be a good way of effectively throwing a safety car but without bunching the pack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtseGcIX6WM

Slightly different in endurance stuff but it worked very well there, and the negatives are far fewer than a full safety car.

[steveaki13]

I agree Mr Jan

That struck me at Le Man as a truly good idea.

[BDunnell]

TBH though I'm not surprised that we've seen someone hit a recovery vehicle, it's just so tragic that it was in such a way. To my mind there has been an issue for a long time, one is that these telehandlers are allowed to go trackside while the race is live. Whilst most of us don't want to see a safety car, they do exist for a reason and would have stopped this from happening. The other is that the drivers routinely ignore the flags. In the UK a yelow flag is defined in the MSA Blue Book as:

"Yellow flag – Waved: Great danger. Slow down considerably. Be prepared to suddenly change from the projected racing line, or take other evasive action including stopping if necessary"

Drivers clearly haven't been doing this for years, and now one of them has paid a very heavy price for it. There isn't a great rethink to be had here, just get back to drivers actually following the rules and stewards enforcing them.

As for the rain...well it was a factor, but if Bianchi had followed the rules, no problem. There's no big rethink to be had on that front in my mind.

Yes, I feel for all those reasons that this can hardly be put into the 'freak accident' category. What happened to poor Henry Surtees was a 'freak accident'. This is not.

With the exception of Brundle's mishap, I can't think of another similar incident in an F1 race. Why has this happened now? Well, it's very hard for any layman to come to a hard conclusion, but I too would suggest that driver behaviour in relation to flag signals has deteriorated. Without wishing to conflate two current issues, maybe the increased reliance on pits-to-car communication is partially to blame? It does seem true that F1 drivers (I don't see the same thing happening in other formulae) are more likely nowadays to miss or ignore flag signals.

[BDunnell]

I wonder whether a system like we saw at Le Mans this year, where there are specific caution zones, would be a good way of effectively throwing a safety car but without bunching the pack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtseGcIX6WM

Slightly different in endurance stuff but it worked very well there, and the negatives are far fewer than a full safety car.

Yes, a very interesting idea. So long as the reliance is kept on the drivers taking heed of the signals, I'm all for it.