Jules Bianchi

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?

 

[Rutherford]

Mephistopheles
Yes some people have but I doubt he did even see the green flag before he left the circuit, after all it was behind the bend and behind the crane which would have covered it as the drivers sit very low.

I am not cancelling out an error that he might have made although he noticed the yellow flags but we have no information on that, so that it just wrong in my opinion.

To the people criticising tarmacked run off areas, the gravel trap did a great job by reducing his speed though, didn't it?
I'm not suggesting tarmac would have prevented the outcome of the crash but the car wouldn't have jumped and it would have lost slightly more speed, even under this conditions.

 

[Mephistopheles]

The horrific thing for me watching the video of the actual crash is you could see him sawing at the steering wheel trying to change direction to no avail and I could sense his panic, I don't know if anyone else picked up on that....

 

[Bushi]

Don't drivers nowadays get the colour of the flag on their steering wheel?
Yep.....

No light for double yellows though.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Yes they do and if it is a double yellow then the yellow LCD blinks on and off

 

[Chad Stewarthill]

Some have wondered (including me) if Jules had slowed enough under the double waved yellow flags. Of course it's quite possible that the opposite is true, and that he slowed too much.

We already know that Ericsson had aquaplaned off behind the first safety car; the commentators also remarked about that time that the cars almost needed to be going faster under the wet conditions to provide enough downforce to give the grip they needed to stay on the track.

Is it therefore possible that the very reduction in speed that Bianchi would have made on seeing the flags, coupled with his old, worn inters and the worsening rain, might have been the cause of him going off?

 

[The Artist.....]

Chad Stewarthill

I see what you're saying, but the usual worry with not going fast enough is not gaining enough tyre temperature, or brake temperature- this will not have been a problem as it was only a small area of the track under yellow flags.

I'm also not sure your thesis holds; under normal conditions, centrifugal inertia increases faster than downforce; otherwise a car would be able to go round all corners flat out!

As mentioned earlier, it is fairly clear that Bianchi was travelling at, or very near, full racing speed. Had he climbed out of the wreckage unharmed, I suspect he would now be facing a penalty in Sochi... As it is, circumstances led to a tragic outcome!

 

[FB]

Anyone remeber at Interlagos last year they cut grooves in to the track at the places where the water accumulated worst. Perhaps the FIA need to look at this for tracks where rain is often a problem (Japan, Malaysia, China, UK) and see if this would reduce the level of standing water or rivers running across the track.

 

[sobriety]

The grooves would work as long as there is elevation, so they'd be rubbish at the Airfield!

F1 for Brands/Donnington!

 

[teabagyokel]

I wonder if a tarmac run-off may have improved things.

 

[FB]

Presumably all track have a camber of some kind to assist the drainage?

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Tarmac collects water whereas gravel lets water seep through. I don't think having tarmac there would have prevented the accident but it wouldn't have made it any worse. Looking back at the crash, it seems that he went off along an escape road. Without seeing an aerial shot of the corner I couldn't say where that road started and ended.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

We did see a number of cars travel over the gravel to the scene of the accident in practice, and even at low speeds. The adhesion might be better on tarmac, even in the wet.

[edit] having said that, wasn't there a tarmac-ed escape road from the track to this corner?

 

[jez101]

I wonder if a tarmac run-off may have improved things.

Without seeing an aerial shot of the corner I couldn't say where that road started and ended.

There is simply no room for any more run off there. It backs right onto the exit of 130R and that doesn't have enough run off either.

Start here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@34.8448904,136.5345243,13a,20y,249.99h,78.98t/data=!3m1!1e3

Answers some questions but opens a whole lot of other ones.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Would the car have slowed more if there was gravel there instead of the service road which he went along? Would the car digging into the gravel and rolling over have been a better result than sliding into a service truck?

Every answer does indeed start more questions and every solution throws up more problems. It's a case of damned if they do and damned if they don't. Motorsport is dangerous and its a risk drivers take every time they get into the car.

The organisers can control as much of the risk as possible but it will always remain.

 

[Jen]

Another full comment from Gary Hartstein

http://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/2271/

Worth a read

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Good blog post again.
About the excess speed, it does appear he was travelling pretty rapidly but then it's quite difficult to gauge from the footage as we're only seeing a car enter a narrow reference frame. It would be more helpful to be able to get it in context - aerial footage perhaps.

 

[Jen]

That was sent to me from a very dear friend who has been a leading UK marshal for over 30 years.

Why would GH post that blog unless he knew it to be true? I think he knows the 'context'!

 

[Brogan]

I've been saying it since Sunday - Bianchi was going way too fast for the conditions (weather and flags).

 

[Tuscan1969]

As I said on a different post I am genuinely and deeply sorry about Jules' accident on Sunday. Jules comes from a racing family and obviously knew what he was doing all the way through his racing career as do all of the drivers. They all are in control of the car and can choose to pull over like Lauda did in Japan if they feel the situation is too extreme.

Its no use Massa saying he was screaming its too wet for 5 laps ...if its too bad then STOP. For goodness sake I'd respect Massa for having the balls to say enough. He has had a terrible accident and got back in the car again and driven in sun, wind, ran and poor visability so if he stops then I know its the right call. But if any of the drivers had simply pulled over on Sunday I could not have blamed them or challenged the call. So maybe we should just stop any races in the wet?????

Certainly I think there should be a focus on not adding to driver risks by having heavy machines on track side but I do also feel the drivers need to take more responsibility too. Its like Gary Hart noted in his blog (thanks Jen ) double waved yellows means be prepared to STOP. I think drivers now lean too much on what they are (were) told by team radio. So unless the team says slow down or stop they will assume they have to keep driving at 100%.

But there is another thing that gnaws at me ; we cannot make racing (or any activity) 100% safe. The only way to protect drivers from accidents would be to have the drivers pilot the cars remotely....but would they want to do that??? I think not ; I firmly believe that part of what makes a good or great racing driver is that indefinable quality that knows there is a risk, accepts it and uses it as a spur to perform even better. What I am trying to say is that if you make it soulless racing these guys will just go and do base jumping or mountaineering or some other risky activity. Part of being an F1 driver is a lifestyle choice ; one that fits the character of the driver in a way that we would just never understand (I chicken out at 140 mph on the autobahn!). Jules was a bright clever talented individual doing what he knew to be dangerous yet that he loved anyway.

I hope that he recovers as fully as possible but I also feel (perhaps wrongly) that he would be more philosophical about his accident than we are. Hopefully at some point in the future he will be able to answer that question for himself.

 

[Andyoak]

Tuscan, so far that is one of the most considered and balanced responses I've read.