"Bianchi did not slow sufficiently to avoid losing control at the same point on the track as Sutil."
What's obvious from the first findings is that double yellow flag rules are not enough to prevent accidents like this. The rules stated you had to prove you have lifted, but as mentioned in that previous quote, all a driver has to do is prove they've lifted off to avoid a penalty, no matter how small the lift is. And as a racing driver, they want to lose as little time as possible in this process, so the drivers can just take their foot off the throttle for a millisecond, and satisfy the rules. That's wrong, and dangerous, in my opinion. That's why I think Jules Bianchi isn't to blame for the incident. I'm pretty sure he would've lifted slightly (obviously this lift would've been small), cos otherwise he would've got a penalty from the stewards, and yes, he did "over-controlled the oversteering car," but he wouldn't have if the rules had been more strict on this matter. So this part of the incident in my opinion, wasn't Jules' fault. In my opinion it was the fact that the rules were too lenient, that drivers get away with even small lifts under double yellow flags without getting a 5 second stop and go penalty or worse, when if the rules were stricter, Jules would've slowed sufficiently enough to avoid spinning off and hitting the crane and the accident would've been prevented.
"The actions taken following Sutil’s accident were consistent with the regulations, and their interpretation following 384 incidents in the preceding eight years. Without the benefit of hindsight, there is no apparent reason why the Safety Car should have been deployed either before or after Sutil’s accident."
Ermm, FIA? I've been watching F1 for 10 years now and I can't remember any incident where they've had to bring a JCB out, where it was on a wet track that was getting wetter, at a fast corner such as Dunlop where another driver could easily lose control at the same point. They should've thought back to Japan 1994, where at the same corner Martin Brundle almost had a similar accident. As I said on twitter immediately after the incident, it should've been instant safety car, and they should've waited till the safety car had picked up the field before deploying the JCB, then no serious incident.
"During the two seconds Bianchi’s car was leaving the track and traversing the run-off area, he applied both throttle and brake together, using both feet. The FailSafe algorithm is designed to over-ride the throttle and cut the engine, but was inhibited by the Torque Coordinator, which controls the rear Brake-by-Wire system. Bianchi’s Marussia has a unique design of BBW, which proved to be incompatible with the FailSafe settings."
To be honest I don't think this made a difference really. If the engine had cut, it would've only scrubbed a few mph off, which probably wouldn't have made a difference to the outcome.
"The fact that the FailSafe did not disqualify the engine torque requested by the driver may have affected the impact velocity; it has not been possible to reliably quantify this. However, it may be that Bianchi was distracted by what was happening and the fact that his front wheels had locked, and been unable to steer the car such that it missed the crane."
He had already lost control at this point so doubt that even if he had steered to the right, he would've avoided the crane.
"It is not feasible to mitigate the injuries Bianchi suffered by either enclosing the driver’s cockpit, or fitting skirts to the crane. Neither approach is practical due to the very large forces involved in the accident between a 700kg car striking a 6500kg crane at a speed of 126kph. There is simply insufficient impact structure on a F1 car to absorb the energy of such an impact without either destroying the driver’s survival cell, or generating non-survivable decelerations."
If they'd put skirts on the side of the crane in the same manner as a tyre wall, then they could absorb the impact without damaging the crane and the Bianchi would've walked away. Closed cockpits would probably have made the incident worse to be honest, if there had been a closed cockpit, then it would've probably collapsed on top of him.
So my opinions are that this incident could've been avoided. As soon as the accident happened, Race Control should've thought back to Japan '94. The thing I find wrong is in 1994, Martin Brundle almost hit a recovery vehicle at the same corner in similar conditions with double, and even hit a marshal, causing serious injury. Surely that would've made the FIA think 'We need to do something, if a driver hits a recovery vehicle or spins off in a double yellow zone, that could cause serious injury or worse to a driver or a marshal.' But the fact they did nothing then, and despite close calls in between now and then, they wait 20 years where a driver gets seriously hurt before something is done, in my opinion is wrong.
Obviously no one can do anything about what's happened now. All everyone can do is just hope and pray that Jules Bianchi will come out of this. What the FIA can also do is learn from it to avoid it happening in the future. Which they have done by introducing a Virtual Safety Car, which hopefully will prevent this sort of incident happening ever again.
#ForzaJules
