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Excellent post, mikymu. Prayers go out to Bianchi and his family.
Yes, best wish to Bianchi's speedy recovery
Originally Posted by Der ABT
that flag station is for the track ahead not behind...if its still fill course green it should be green...aka local yellow...yellow flag leading up to the incident...once clear...green racing....
was that pic before or after he went in there, remember he was the second car in there..
Very scary though, almost reminds me of that accident the girl had with the loading door .....with cars this low there needs to be a though about protecting drivers from driving under things like that.
Thoughts go out to him
The pic above was right after Bianchi's crash to the tractor. Local yellow in F1 means you slow down a fraction but not enough to let the car behind gain on you which all translate to near racing speed. If that's what drivers want and F1 and FIA sanction the practice then drivers and corner workers beware. There is no excuse for F1 not to bring cars to a crawl when heavy equipment are deploy on the track unless they can wrap tire walls around the tractors
I'm not sure that is a valid criticism. F1's safety record over the last several seasons is very good.
Simply put F1 already has rules on the books that require drivers to not employ "race speed" through local yellows and they monitor driver times to enforce it.
I think F1's luck ran out and Bianchi was the unfortunate victim. There is absolutely "the show must go on" mentality. There were only a handful of laps remaining and they wanted to fit them in.
The race could have been run earlier - it wasn't. They should have had a pace car out after Sutil's crash - they didn't.
TV rights and the all-mighty dollar have to much influence. I'm not so naïve as to think the show would go on without these things but F1 has to do a better job making sure drivers are safe.
Depressing when Google auto-fill shows "Jules Bianchi dead" as the third choice of what's be searched. Waiting for some good news.
I'm not sure that is a valid criticism. F1's safety record over the last several seasons is very good.
Simply put F1 already has rules on the books that require drivers to not employ "race speed" through local yellows and they monitor driver times to enforce it.
I'm with Ray, since Senna's fatal injury, there hasn't been any major injuries and there has been some huge shunts.
Regarding yellows, there were double yellow which in F1 means slowing down and to be ready to come to a stop so much more caution needed that with regular yellow.
I have no info how slow Jules was driving but of course rain makes things more unpredictable.
I just wish there will be good news soon, hopefully the surgery was successful.
My thoughts and prayers for him. I didn't realize this happened until I came back to the re-broadcast late this afternoon. I also heard they had to DRIVE him to the local hospital.
Here is my bit of information, having lived in Japan. Suzuka is in the sticks in Mie and any hospital drivable from there would not be much of a level 1 trauma center. The closest big city is Nagoya, which is not accessible by any real highways as I recall. Only local trains also run to this crazy "Detroit of Japan" from which you take a one car train and walk to the track. I hope they were finally able to get him airlifted to Nagoya or Osaka to get some level 1 attention.
5 October 2014 – Former Formula 1 driver Andrea de Cesaris has died at the age of 55 following a motorbike accident in his native Italy.
Local media reports say that de Cesaris lost control of his bike on a road near Rome and was killed instantly.
De Cesaris competed in 214 races across a 15-year career, claiming a pole position and five podiums. He held the record for the most races without claiming a victory and was a well-liked figure within the Formula 1 community.
He made his debut with Alfa Romeo in 1980 before moving to McLaren for 1981, a decision which proved unsuccessful and he returned to Alfa Romeo for two seasons. 1983 proved to be his best year as he twice finished on the podium and classified eighth in the championship.
Several frugal seasons followed as he raced for Ligier, Minardi, Brabham, Rial and Dallara, but among many retirements were a couple of top three results.
De Cesaris joined Jordan for its first foray into Formula 1 in 1991 and claimed the team's maiden points in Canada, as well as competing for victory in Belgium. He made the switch to Tyrrell for a couple of seasons and 1994 was his final year in the sport as he briefly returned to Jordan before bowing out with Sauber.
There was a local yellow but as you can see from picture below the flag station was waving green right after Biachi crashed (all the corner works just stand there looked bewildered) and the whole filed was traveling at racing speed with local yellow when the crash happened.
F1 need to under take another major change after this incident. The "show must go on" mentality in the past has cost so many lives and now is much better but still need improvement. Why do we allow race speed to go on when a heavy equipment is on the track removing disable vehicle is beyond me. Most US bases race body will have the whole field down to a crawl when trucks or heavy equipment are on race track. There is a very good reason why a race car went off on certain section of the track - and the statistic is dramatically higher for another car to go off at the same spot.
We all wish Bianchi and his family the best and a speedy recovery
No they (F1) don't.
The FIA/F1 have very strict rules around standing and/or waving yellows, as was the case here. It is the DROVER'S responsibility to maneuver the course, in other words take the corner at a lower rate of speed than that which he would under green racing conditions. At rate of speed that he (the drover) feels that he has the vehicle under complete control. Add to that the fact that it was raining, plus he's in a crap chassis that may have been sprung too stiff and that there could've been "something" (oil, debris or a "river") on the track surface which had already caught another drover out.
Also having a drover go off in a corner doesn't "dramatically" increase the chances of another drover going off at the same spot, UNLESS as I mentioned above, there's "something" on the track surface which caught the other drover out in the first place.
This may not be a popular stance, but the party that needs to assume the biggest portion of the blame for this incident is the one behind the wheel.
I don't have access to his telemetry but let's for arguments sake, agree that he was going at the same rate of speed that we would've been traveling had a safety-car been deployed (which not having one deployed under those conditions; not the rain but the fact that there were safety vehicles and a crane in such a precarious position, is my only point of contention with the stewards and the FIA), then I would agree that it was a freak accident. Any rate of speed higher than that, well then that's the drover's responsibility and the FIA is partly to blame for not having a safety car out.
As far as having the course going green after the incident, that's irrelevant. Besides, there wasn't any reason that warranted for it not to be green.
But like I said before, the most important thing at this time is Jules' well being.
5 October 2014 – Former Formula 1 driver Andrea de Cesaris has died at the age of 55 following a motorbike accident in his native Italy.
Local media reports say that de Cesaris lost control of his bike on a road near Rome and was killed instantly.
De Cesaris competed in 214 races across a 15-year career, claiming a pole position and five podiums. He held the record for the most races without claiming a victory and was a well-liked figure within the Formula 1 community.
He made his debut with Alfa Romeo in 1980 before moving to McLaren for 1981, a decision which proved unsuccessful and he returned to Alfa Romeo for two seasons. 1983 proved to be his best year as he twice finished on the podium and classified eighth in the championship.
Several frugal seasons followed as he raced for Ligier, Minardi, Brabham, Rial and Dallara, but among many retirements were a couple of top three results.
De Cesaris joined Jordan for its first foray into Formula 1 in 1991 and claimed the team's maiden points in Canada, as well as competing for victory in Belgium. He made the switch to Tyrrell for a couple of seasons and 1994 was his final year in the sport as he briefly returned to Jordan before bowing out with Sauber.
Sad news indeed, De Crasheris (so nicknamed for his many, ahem colorful race, qualifying and practice session exits throughout his career) was always very liked by the entire F1 community. I met him twice and what I always found refreshing was that he knew his place in F1, his reputation, his skill level and accepted it. Oh and he could talk your ear off! Very down to Earth, awesome guy and understandably so, very well liked.
10-05-2014, 06:34 PM
