Jules Bianchi was born in Nice, France in August 1989 and now at the age of 23, after a few false starts, he’s landed himself a race seat in F1 for the 2013 season.

Bianchi comes from quite a successful racing dynasty as the grandson of three times GT world champion Mauro Bianchi and grandnephew of Lucien Bianchi who drove in F1 for various teams between 1959 and 1968 even scoring a 3rd place podium for Cooper in 68 at Monaco. He also won the Le Mans 24 Hour the same year so young Jules has a bit to live up too to keep the family name in good check. The good news is he comes highly rated and well thought of so has the potential to do so. He jumped out of Karting and into single seater racing in 2007 taking on the French Formula Renault 2.0 series and winning it at the first attempt. He was on the podium in all but 2 of the 13 races and won the title by a clear 50 points beating a certain Charles Pic into 4th place. Bianchi then jumped up a class to drive for ART in the Formula 3 Euro Series and in 2008 came third in the series which was won by Nico Hulkenberg, In 2009 he found his feet proper and cruised to the title. His team mates that year were Valitteri Botas and Esteban Gutierriez (who came 3rd and 9th in the championship respectively). From there Bianchi jumped into GP2 and was expected to carry on his miraculous rise to the top already receiving such high plaudits as “The next Lewis Hamilton”. Unfortunately for Bianchi this is where his career stalled a bit as 2010 became the first season he’d ever had in single seater racing where he failed to score a race victory in the category he was racing in however for most it would have been considered an impressive first season in GP2 coming 3rd behind Maldonado and Perez (beating Pic and Van Der Garde in the process) and some hoped it was to be a platform for him to build his career on. 2009 was to be a year of a disappointment for Bianchi, although he was to finally gain some victories in GP2 his form was patch at best and his season was full of too many errors, he once again finished 3rd behind the runaway champ Grosjean and just 1 point behind Fillipi (he once again beat Pic and Van Der Garde) and all that potential appeared it wasn’t going to be realised.

Whoever it was who decided Bianchi was best off out of GP2 made a brave but good decision on his behalf. Moving him to the 3.5 World Series allowed him to take on the reserve role with Force India and stand on the brink of an F1 drive. He was able to be with the team on race weekends and even ran in Friday practice sessions, Meanwhile he repaired the damage done to his rep by giving it his all in the World Series, he was eventually beaten in the last race of the season to the title by Robin Frijns by 4 points but he’d done enough for people to start paying attention again. With Hulkenberg leaving Force India he was favourite for a long time to take the second seat there but after a long drawn out saga the seat went to Sutil and his hopes of running in F1 in 2013 looked dashed but literally 2 days after that announcement Luiz Razia’s sponsorship deal fell through and thus his seat at Marussia became available and Bianchi had himself a seat and finally a place with the big boys.

Bianchi is well respected in the pit lane and has been on Ferrari’s books since 2009 (there was even talk of him taking the race seat from Luca Bador at one point), He was their officially reserve driver in 2011 and was ‘loaned’ out to Force India in 2012. He’s had many opportunities to drive a Ferrari at various different test sessions and its no offence to him to say they have been pulling certain strings for him. Ferrari seemed exceptionally keen to get him in a race seat for 2013 and rumours are already rife that Marussia may get an engine deal out of running with him. It has been suggested in some quarters that Ferrari are thinking he may be an ideal replacement for Massa and want him to get some F1 experience and see how he runs. We can all be pretty sure that Bianchi would rather have been proving his worth fighting in the midfield battle for Force India rather than being adrift at the back like he probably will be but maybe, just maybe, this might actually be an advantage for Bianchi’s career. At Marussia the pressure is off as no expects him to achieve anything down there. For a driver who is prone to errors under pressure it could be that finding his feet in a pressurless situation is exactly what he needs, he even has the excuse that his team mate has by far more testing time than he does(although that one won’t last for long). Bianchi already has his foot in the door at a team further up the field and is only really looking to show he has the ability to drive a car to its potential so if he can beat his team mate and mix it with the Caterhams he’s pretty much shown that, anything else is a bonus.

I’m interested to see how Bianchi runs and he is certainly one of the more deserving of rookies this season. So what do we think of our 4th Frenchmen on the grid? A Ferrari driver in waiting or just another 1 year Marussia wonder?
 
So Gonzalez takes Bianchi's car for P1 and the gearbox gets trashed. Bianchi gets back in it and its set on fire twice after sessions.

Bet he's thinking that the car ran fine until that bugger got in it.
 
http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1...chi-gets-thumbs-up-for-his-start-to-f1-career

Some interesting messages coming out of this article.

Is Bianchi being shaped up to slot in as Massa's replacement ?? From what's written here it's hard to tell but it is clear that Ferrari are pleased with their young driver.

I found this quote intersting though:

"We will continue to concentrate on stress management, an aspect where he has already made great progress, even if there is still room for improvement."

This suggests that Bianchi would struggle with the additional expectations of driving for the Scuderia. Is this what could hold him back?

Looking at the next steps in Bianchi's development, Baldisserri added: "Clearly, currently Jules is not in a situation where he can fight in the midfield and for the future, it will be important to know if his presence in Formula 1 will have some continuity and in that case, what could be the potential of his team."

From this quote it would suggest that before any step up, Ferrari would like to see more from Bianchi but the dilema they have is that he needs a better car to show what he can really do when mixing it with the midfield. So, could this mean a move to a better funded team but not a place at the top table ??
 
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Maybe Force India will give him a seat, it seemed a close call for this season and he's done pretty well so far for Marussia. Sutil seems unsure of keeping his seat and I'm not sure Di Resta is doing himself any favours with his attitude (he seems too quick to openly criticise the team, even if they are to blame).

I really don't see Bianchi getting a Ferrari seat in 2014 though, especially with the regulations overhaul. I think the step up from Marussia to Ferrari would be bigger than the step from GP2 to Marussia in many ways.
 
I think the 'pressure managment' stuff is well advised. Bianchi did buckle under the pressure when he ran in GP2 and didn't do himself justice. When he moved over to the Renault World Series the pressure was off a little and his talent came through more. He would have won it too if it wasn't for some, shall we say, aggressive driving by Frinjs.

I think Marussia was a wise move because its allowed him to get his confidence up in F1 without the inital pressure of results. He does need to step it up next year and Force India would be a good option but I think he burnt that bridge when he left for Marussia. Also FI seemed to be in negotiations with James Caledo right now.
 
Judging by his career stat's he is one of the better qualified of the new chaps so he deserves a decent seat. If those stress issues are dealt with then that's better still. As for his being unable to fight in the midfield that's probably more to do with being sat in a Marussia rather than a comment on his skill. I think a carelessly misplaced or a missing comma in that article is misleading:

"Clearly, currently Jules is not in a situation where he can fight in the midfield and for the future, it will be important to know if his presence in Formula 1 will have some continuity and in that case, what could be the potential of his team."

That implies: "Jules is not in a situation where he can fight in the midfield and for the future," until his stress issues are sorted out. I suspect however that it should have read like this: "Jules is not in a situation where he can fight in the midfield, and for the future it will be important to know if his presence in Formula 1 will have some continuity ..."

The implication of those statements is that an offer from a midfield team hasn't been forthcoming and that Marussia are dragging their feet with regard to a definite commitment. It's not unusual for drives to be offered well into the second half of the season. He's way better than some others we could name so there is hope of good seat for Jules yet.

A final thought regarding the stress management comment. Not knowing the full context of that one has to ask the question "Is stress management training a normal integral part of the Ferrari Academy training regime OR has Bianchi required it as an extra curricula activity? Considering he is regarded as the pick of the academy's crop, and based on his performance so far in F1, I suspect it's the former - i.e. a normal part of the programme. Learning to cope with stress and pressure is a normal part of one's growth as an individual so his stress management training might just be "getting a leg up".
 
In a recent (for-pay) Autosport Plus, Bianchi's race engineer, Paul Davison speaks glowingly of Bianchi, labeling him "the real deal." Says he has a balanced feel for what's important versus what's minutia that belies his experience level. Doesn't try to engineer the car but he is good about providing the engineers the info they need, and understands the significance of the changes as they make them.

He calls Bianchi the most professional (in so many words) driver he has worked with in 10 years, and says his qualy lap at Malaysia was the best lap ever turned in a Marussia car.
 
Shine has gone off Jules a little this year. He had periods in his junior career where he would go off the boil somewhat.

Suddenly he's being put in the shade by Max Chilton who is single handedly taking the Marussia fight to Caterham!
 
Yep. It was good to see him have a good race today because he's not had the best races this year.

Whilst the points could be seen as lucky you have to remember there were guys with far more experience making mistakes when he didn't.
 
I don't actually believe in luck in such circumstances. Maybe opportunity is a better word.

No driver is infallible and there is always a winner off the back of 'bad luck'.

I'm glad it was Jules this week!!
 
Good race from him and he could have finished higher if he didn't start on the wrong grid spot, cost him more 10+ seconds.

Although his move on Kobayashi was a bit naughty and probably deserved a 5 second penalty.
 
'Opportunistic' I think is a better word.

And also, if Magnussen hadn't got going again we would have had a Caterham in the points aswell.
 
Good race from him and he could have finished higher if he didn't start on the wrong grid spot, cost him more 10+ seconds.

Although his move on Kobayashi was a bit naughty and probably deserved a 5 second penalty.

We complain about no overtaking at Monaco and as soon as someone sticks one up the inside of the penultimate corner we're saying he should get a penalty.

In saying that I'm surprised he wasn't penalised. They'll be penalised for going off the racing line next.
 
His overtake was good opportunist driving, I'm sure that Kobayashi would have done the same had the roles been reversed; then we would have been hearing about yet another fantastic by the Japanese.
 
Latest confirmed news is that he is in a critical condition and is being operated on for a severe head injury. After seeing images of the car after the crash that is better news than I was expecting. It is great to see the whole F1 community come together at a time like this. #ForzaJules
 
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