Jules Bianchi: 6 months on

Six months have passed since arguably the saddest day in F1 since I started following the sport almost 10 years ago.

I still remember everything about that morning, getting up excited about the prospect of a Grand Prix but just a couple of hours later shaking with fear on the verge of tears. I still remember how scary the situation was, how no one, not even Sky F1 knew who and what the stretcher and the ambulance were there for until the bright red and black rear wing endplate being picked up came into shot, and I remember the moment David Croft announced that Jules Bianchi was there, my heart just sunk (as I'm sure was the case with everyone else who watched the race) as judging by the wherabouts of his car, it was really obvious to all what had happened, and it was really obvious to all that it was gravely serious.

6 months later and there has not been a day where I haven't thought about him, and I honestly can't believe that he has spent half a year in a coma without even any signs of awakening as far as we know.

All the whole world of F1 is hoping now is that a miracle occurs and Jules is able to make a recovery.

#ForzaJules

Manor F1 Team - Is it all over?

Yesterday, we received news that Marussia, now called Manor have not received a dispensation to use their 2014 car, which is a huge blow to their hopes of participating in the 2015 season.


However they haven't confirmed they won't be in Australia yet, and I can see why. BBC says that the changes to the 2015 regulations make it "close to impossible" to modify the 2014 MR01 to accommodate the 2015 regulations. However is that really true?


All that has changed in the regulations is the front bulkhead has to be lower and the nosecone must change. However going by the past, we know that is possible, Brawn GP in 2009 had to change the back of the chassis completely in mere hours to accommodate the Mercedes engine, and tested the car that same day. Manor have over a month to do so, and that should be enough to modify, develop and test the updated MR01 so it can accommodate the regulations.


However I don't think they should do that. In my opinion, whatever they do, they should put their return on hold till 2016, because there is no point racing this year as they will just be backmarkers like they were. However if they delay their return till 2016, they will have a whole year to sort themselves out with the new investor and develop a 2016 car, and then 2016 could easily be their best season, as they will have had longer than they have ever had before to develop a race car.

Bianchi crash findings - My opinions

This has been a subject for debate over the past couple of months, because it's clear that if the FIA take the correct action, they can prevent this sort of accident from ever happening again. Here is my opinion on some of the FIA's findings regarding the crash.

"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

Jules Bianchi

Every race, I always look forward to, especially considering the standards of this year's racing. However despite that, I and all motor racing fans have to accept that, even though the risk is not as large as it used to be, one of these drivers, any one of them, could be taken from us.

Today's Japanese GP saw an exciting race, what more could I want, Hamilton won and extended his lead, Force India stay ahead of McLaren, but I wasn't celebrating after today's race. Because of an incident involving Jules Bianchi, where he hit a crane trying to clear away Adrian Sutil's car. All the signs, the marshals around and the fact there was no champagne sprayed on the podium, is not a good sign. We are just patiently waiting for news on Jules, praying that he's going to be OK.

My point is can the FIA learn any lessons from this? In my opinion they can. Not on the safety of the cars. On a totally different subject. This year, the FIA has been very lenient on when to bring the safety car out. In Germany, Adrian Sutil spun at the last corner, and marshals had to run across the racing line, it was just dangerous. Today, when Sutil crashed at Dunlop Corner, they brought the crane out before the safety car, and in my opinion, if they hadn't done that, the incident wouldn't have been as serious. Bianchi would've gone into the tyre wall, and been OK, like Sutil. So why couldn't the FIA have done that?

All I'm hoping now is that Jules Bianchi is going to be OK. I was shaking with fear when I heard what had happened, and I'm hoping and praying he is not seriously injured.

Stay with us Jules.

Singapore GP Review

Hello, it's HamiltonFan1705 here, and first off, hello and welcome to my new blog! Here I'll be talking about motorsport, mainly F1 and analysing what's gone on. So this blog will open with the Singapore GP Review, where I headline a defining part of the race.

Rosberg's problems

The first and most defining part of the whole race, and could've been a defining part in the championship took place even before the Singapore Grand Prix got underway. A crossed wiring loom hits Rosberg, and he is unable to get away for the formation lap, meaning he has to start from the pitlane. He'd unsurprisingly call it a day on Lap 14. Kobayashi's race also ended before the race had even begun. As Martin Brundle said, this is what we all thought would happen in Melbourne, but it hasn't happened till 14 races into a season that has seen the introduction of totally complex and new hybrid systems. The start wasn't the most exciting in the world, the most exciting thing that happened was Alonso cutting the first chicane, but he relinquished the position he gained as a result. My question is if he didn't cut the corner, would he have been ahead of Ricciardo as he didn't relinquish that position. Obviously the stewards don't think so by not giving him any penalty. The first half of the race saw a fair bit of action, particularly in the battle for second between Vettel and Alonso, Alonso was closing on Vettel.

Sutil takes off Perez, bringing out the safety car

Here was a major defining point of the race. Sergio Perez wasn't having the best of races, but it all got a lot worse when he pitted, as Adrian Sutil cut across and damaged his front wing. The front wing eventually disintegrated, spreading debris all over the track, causing the safety car to be deployed. It was a dangerous move from Sutil, which could've easily caused Perez's wing to tuck under his car and pitch him into the wall. This totally changed the complexion of the race. Alonso had pitted for the supersoft tyre, which meant he would've easily undercutted the Red Bulls who had pitted just before but Ferrari to sacrifice the two positions to make sure Alonso could get to the end. Hamilton, who had just pitted for supersofts however was not in the best of positions as he had to make another stop and he had to pull a big enough gap to stay in front. Crucially, he rejoined ahead of Ricciardo, when if he hadn't it would've been a lot harder to take the win.

Hamilton's defining pass

Hamilton easily cruised up to the rear of Vettel's car, and he breezed past the Red Bull for the lead at Raffles Boulevard. It was a defining moment, definitely in the race, but it could've also been defining for the championship as well. Meanwhile for one of the other British drivers Jenson Button, things weren't going well, as just as Hamilton made the defining pass on Vettel, he reported on the team radio "Total shutdown," and he had to park.

Vergne and Force India charge

A lot of action took place in the final few laps. Both Bottas and Raikkonen were struggling for pace as a result of tyre wear, and were being caught by both the Force India cars, with Perez fighting back from his incident with Sutil, and Jean-Eric Vergne. Vergne was on a charge! He was able to first pass the Force Indias, then Raikkonen and Bottas. He had a 5 second time penalty but he had so much pace on fresher tyres that he was able to pull away enough to keep sixth. Perez then passed Raikkonen, before Bottas totally ran out of tyre grip and dropped behind Perez, Raikkonen and Hulkenberg.

Hamilton takes championship lead

That was it in terms of action as Lewis Hamilton was able to take his seventh win of the season, thus taking the lead of the drivers standings, albeit by only 3 points. Sebastian Vettel had his best race of the year in second just ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in third.

Conclusion and the championship fight

In conclusion, I thought it was quite an exciting race, it continued 2014's run of absolutely phenomenal races. Why does there have to be a 2 week break before Japan :( In terms of the championship, it's now anyone's gain really, if no reliability issues hit the Mercedes drivers, then the simple rule is the driver who drives the best wins. However I don't see there being no more reliability issues for Mercedes this year, considering that they don't have the most reliable car on the grid. My prediction for the rest of the season is in one of the last 5 races, one of the Mercedes drivers will have a reliability issue and which ever one it is will lose the title.

Team by team review
Mercedes: Easily the quickest on race day but wasn't all plain sailing with Rosberg's failure.
Red Bull: Reasonable run, even though they were fairly lucky to get a double podium with the safety car.
Williams: They'd probably be a bit disappointed with Massa finishing in fifth and Bottas not scoring considering their qually pace.
Ferrari: Pretty sure they will have expected better considering the promise they showed over the course of the weekend.
Force India: They are slowly coming back after their recent slump in form, with double points moving them ahead of McLaren.
McLaren: Disappointing run, considering they showed a fair bit of promise over the course of the weekend.
Toro Rosso: Their strongest showing of the season in terms of pace, especially with a great drive from Vergne.
Lotus: Another difficult race, just were nowhere compared to the drivers who scored points.
Sauber: Another double DNF, To be honest, I think they should be happy if they score a point all season.
Marussia: Not their best race of the season, both cars finished last of the finishers in sixteenth and seventeenth.
Caterham: Ericsson had a good run, however they could only run one car due to Kobayashi's issues.

Hope you've enjoyed reading this blog, and I hope to write another article like this for Japan!