Jules Bianchi Suffers Severe Head Injury

[Valve Bounce]

Wouldn't having a tense cable across part of the run-off area potentially be even more dangerous? Especially if the car was immobile, the dragging would cause more debris that would need to be picked up, more danger for Marshalls etc.. Not disagreeing with you that something needs to be looked into!

Not if the safety car has een deployed and race control informs the marshals no, I repeat NO racing cars are in the vicinity.
While on the topic, Alain Prost has also condemned the deployment of the JCB onto the track while cars were racing. Big error, and somebody must be held accountable. Maybe in time honoured tradition, this person may consider hari-kiri!

[Valve Bounce]

I'm starting to think that the best solution is also the easy solution. And it might rob us of some racing time but it would be fair to all drivers.

Simply enforce the pit speed limiter at any time a recovery vehicle has to come out from behind the wall. In the event of a track with really slow corners, set a limiter even lower if needed. Once the FIA transmit the message, cars have X seconds to comply. When the accident is cleared, drivers get a warning or countdown to when they can resume racing.

We had an incident earlier this year where marshalls were crossing the track with cars only seconds away. And in this case the speed though the area was much too high, and it endangered others as well as Jules.

BRILLIANT! I fully support this solution.

[Robinho]

At very least they could neutralise a sector of the track to a predetermined delta time (adjusted for wet and dry conditions) of say 25-50% over the mean time for the sector. Stop go penalties for all infringements. Disqualification for more than one infringement in a season. With the technology we have there is little need for a safety car, except that it physically bunches the cars together, leaving big clear areas of track/time to do what they need to do. For off track work neutralisation would suffice, for anything that actually involves activity on the circuit full safety car. No trackside vehicles to come past the fence until neutralization of that sector occurs

[jparker]

Another way of improvement could be the marshals. I'm not sure what kind of training they receive, but there must be better on the spot judgement of situations like this. There was clearly very dangerous situation at that corner, and some kind of higher level alert should have been deployed, especially when it rains.

[MrJan]

Another way of improvement could be the marshals. I'm not sure what kind of training they receive, but there must be better on the spot judgement of situations like this. There was clearly very dangerous situation at that corner, and some kind of higher level alert should have been deployed, especially when it rains.

If F1 is anything like lower level motorsport then you don't care what training the marshals have! The number of people volunteering to marshal these days is really poor and a lot of events that I'm involved in are really close to not running at all, as a result of there not being enough marshals.

[journeyman racer]

Another way of improvement could be the marshals. I'm not sure what kind of training they receive, but there must be better on the spot judgement of situations like this. There was clearly very dangerous situation at that corner, and some kind of higher level alert should have been deployed, especially when it rains.

Pull out your wallet.

[AndyL]

Moving words from Jules' father.
http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/1...till-fighting/

[Malbec]

We had a discussion some years ago about the removal of cars from the track. I had advocated using a winch to drag a beached/damaged/crashed car off the track. However one of the members here, an active marshall , commented that would be unsafe as a rule of thumb is that another car could come off at the same location.
Under the circumstances, Sutil's car could have been winched off the track had a 4WD equipped with a winch and a Marshall deployed when the safety car was on track to slow all cars down and the area of the crash had NO cars about to come near. We are talking about seconds to attach a cable to the stricken car.

Under NO circumstances should a JCB be on the track until all cars were stopped. Who the blooming hell gave the OK for the JCB to go onto the track? This is incompetence and stupidity of the highest order, and should be the subject of an inquisition, not to mention a huge, huge fine for the Organisers of the race.
The Japanese are great sticklers for any time table, be it train or ship; but not to advance the race time or even postpone the race because of the oncoming typhoon is simply caused by not wanting to lose face. Well, somebody should draw the Organisers attention that the result of their incompetence has now resulted in a trajedy far worse than merely loss of face!
I am more than just saddened by Bianchi's injury; I am disgusted at the stupidity and incompetence of the Organisers responsible for this incident.

Actually the organisers did nothing wrong and Charlie Whiting's assessment is I believe correct.

There was no guarantee that a rescheduled race would have been any safer given that the conditions at Suzuka were changing regularly. The unspoken and ironic thing here is of course that the very media outlets (especially TV) that are lambasting Suzuka for not rescheduling the race would also have complained bitterly at having to reschedule their own TV timetables. Had Suzuka been started in the morning at local time then it would have been broadcast in Europe (still F1's main TV market) in a complete deadzone around 1-2 am. As Vettel said in a Sky interview after the race about his own thoughts about rescheduling the race he responded that the journalist should ask her employers, after all the race organiser had commitments to the media that they would have been penalised for breaking and had more clout than the drivers or the FIA in this regard.

Were the weather conditions to blame? I'm sure the wet conditions contributed but the rain was hardly monsoon-like at the time of the accident. As Brundle commented we weren't seeing cars flying off on the straights as we do in serious wet weather conditions. Had Bianchi not gone off the safety car would not have been deployed. The only driver complaining about the conditions was Massa and we all know his love affair with wet weather driving don't we. Lewis and Rosberg stated that they saw no problems with the wet conditions other than the spray at the time the accident happened. Racing in Japan carries on through the typhoon season and they are used to handling races in such conditions, nevertheless what we saw at Suzuka was not comparable to what we saw at Fuji when the race was rescheduled or Sepang when the race was redflagged due to the torrential rain.

As for the JCB, what other sensible options are there for rapid car retrieval? The contours of the hills around the corner there with 130R just behind doesn't allow the placement of a huge crane. Your winch option is fine for a car beached on its own in the gravel except for the cable acting like a perfectly placed garrote for any drivers going in the same place, how does it help for cars that are punched deep into the tyre barrier?

Just to put things into perspective Bianchi was very close to Sutil when the latter went off. Bianchi then lost control exactly one lap later at the same spot. In that time (around two minutes) the JCB was already reversing back behind the tyre barrier when the Marussia went into it. The marshals were extremely efficient. They were also protected by double waved yellows. And here lies the rub, the truth that taste prevents people from stating too loudly. Had Bianchi followed the double waved yellow flag guidelines he wouldn't have been going at the speed he had been and the crash would likely have been far less violent had it occurred at all. He had been going at 200 km/h when Button at full race pace through the same corner was going at 230 km/h and others at 260 km/h in the dry. A mere 30km/h slower than full race pace in the same conditions is NOT in anyone's book complying with 'slow down and be prepared to stop'.

Racers are racers and I can fully understand why they do not comply with double waved yellows, however making them comply is the best way of sorting out this problem. Pointing fingers in hysteria will not resolve anything. Introducing racial stereotypes into the argument certainly doesn't help.

[MrJan]

Malbec - All very valid points, but surely there isn't a reasonable excuse for not putting out a safety car to take the time to safely recover Sutil's car?

[Bagwan]

The yellow zone starts half way around the corner .
He would have been going as fast as he could until then .

When you lift off the pedal mid turn , your balance goes out the window .