Jules Bianchi crash asks new questions of F1 safety measures

The accident that befell Jules Bianchi during Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix was the most serious in Formula One since Felipe Massa was hit by a suspension spring which left him in a life-threatening situation after qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009.

He recovered, and it is the sincerest wish of everyone involved in Formula One that Bianchi will too. The driver underwent surgery for a severe head injury on Sunday night, with a medical update expected later on Monday.

Formula One has not suffered a death on track at a race weekend since Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed at Imola in the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. It is to the sport's credit that changes to circuit and car design and improved safety procedures have produced such a remarkable record in an inherently dangerous occupation. But, here, after Bianchi's crash, F1 knows it will now have to undergo a bout of serious self-examination.

Bianchi went off at the very quick Dunlop curve in heavy rain and hit the tractor crane recovery vehicle that was removing Adrian Sutil’s car from the track after he had exited at the same corner on the previous lap. It was a big accident and it soon became clear that Bianchi was badly injured. The ramifications are immediate and raise questions that strike across central aspects of the sport.

That the typhoon Phanfone was heading for Suzuka was well known in advance, indeed, until Sebastian Vettel announced he was leaving Red Bull, its potential effect on the race had largely been the topic of discussion in the paddock.

Heavy rain had been predicted for both race day and the race window of 3pm to 4.30pm, while from the Friday an early start was also being discussed. The race starts at 3pm local time largely to make it as attractive as possible to the European TV market, where it is then 7am.

At Suzuka, where darkness falls exceptionally quickly at 5.30pm, rain and any associated delay would mean potentially a wet race finishing on difficult conditions in poor visibility at dusk. The typhoon did not arrive on Sunday but this perfect storm was exactly what transpired.

Heavy rain had caused the race to be red-flagged just two laps in and 20 minutes were lost before it restarted. When the downpour returned with intensity in the latter stages, spray, low cloud cover and deteriorating light made for extremely difficult conditions.

Williams’s Massa was vocal in his criticism of both the start and finish. “In my opinion they started the race too early because it was undriveable at the beginning,” he said. “And they finished it too late. I was already screaming on the radio five laps before the safety car that there was too much water on the track. But then they took a little bit too long, we saw it was dangerous and we saw a crash.”

Given the widespread knowledge of the expected poor conditions and the speed with which darkness would descend, why had it not been started earlier?

The FIA had offered an earlier start time of 11am to the race promoters, Honda, who had reportedly rejected it because fans would not be able to make it to the circuit, which is around three hours from Tokyo. They have since made no statement on the matter and it is also impossible to ignore the part that the complex financial and scheduling implications of shifting the time for TV companies may have played. Yet safety would seem an overriding imperative to insist there was a change of start time.

The drivers, however, had not been consulted. “We weren’t asked about our opinion,” said Sutil who witnessed Bianchi’s crash. “It got more wet the whole day through and it would have been quite easy to make the race a bit earlier but it’s not in my hands.”

In the statement on Sunday evening confirming that Bianchi was undergoing surgery, the FIA pointed out that marshals in the area around Dunlop had been waving double yellow flags, warning of great danger ahead and that drivers must slow down and be prepared to stop. But the safety car had not at that point been deployed for Sutil’s accident. Bianchi may have lifted off but coming out of the high-speed turns would still have been travelling at great speed and flags in those conditions may not have been enough.

"You are going into the barrier if you go off there," said the former driver and television analyst Martin Brundle. "There's no way of recovering, you are going too fast. Some will say there are yellow or double yellows flags but that doesn't stop you spinning off."

The race director, Charlie Whiting in this instance, makes the call on deploying the safety car. The race had started and then restarted behind it but questions will remain why, given the circumstances, it was not immediately called out when Sutil went off.

Then there is the crash itself. Bianchi hit a recovery vehicle, which has large wheels and a high ground clearance that will allow an F1 car to go in underneath it. Much as the safety aspects of modern cars have improved, they are designed to cope with impacts on other cars or barriers, not a tractor.

Brundle has first-hand experience of this and has long-questioned their deployment. In the rain-soaked 1994 Japanese Grand Prix here at Suzuka he narrowly missed a tractor removing Gianni Morbidelli’s car.

“I really thought that was it,” he has said of the incident. “I hit a patch of standing water and closed my eyes – I really thought this is the end.”

He recalled the incident immediately after this race as well. “I spun off under yellows [\flags], there was so much spray I couldn’t even see my own steering wheel let alone the yellow flags that day. If one car goes off there’s so much greater chance of another going off in the same place.”

There is a clear need for safety purposes to remove damaged cars from the track. The race winner, Lewis Hamilton, who drove superbly and now leads his title rival Nico Rosberg by 10 points, said it was "normal protocol. They have to get the cars off the track for safety. If a car was sitting there and someone had gone off they would have hit the car".

But again, how and under what circumstances will be in the spotlight. Brundle was forthright in his view that recovery vehicles are a problem. “My concern is those things on track. I nearly lost my life against one of them, just missed it and hit a marshal,” he said. “They are just too high and you are sitting down low.”

Their use at race weekends in removing cars swiftly has become ubiquitous but may now require more regulated control, particularly in heavy rain. “Procedures have to be looked at,” said the former F1 and current Toyota World Endurance Championship driver Anthony Davidson. “Perhaps, no diggers or vehicles on the track in extreme conditions? It’s inevitable cars will collect in points like that. You shouldn’t have recovery vehicles on the track.”

Sadly but perhaps more understandably there was also confusion. Shortly after the incident the FIA stated that: “The driver is not conscious and has been sent to the hospital by ambulance because the helicopter cannot fly in these conditions.”

However the helicopter was seen taking off only minutes later prompting many to ask why it had not been used. With a direct land route to the hospital within 20 minutes and Bianchi having suffered a head wound it is probable the FIA medical delegate decided this was the safer option but there remains no further explanation. Clarity over the circumstances and what the procedures are in such emergencies would be welcome.

Twelve months ago, while the Japanese Grand Prix weekend was proceeding, the former Marussia test driver María de Villota was found dead at a hotel in Seville. De Villota lost her right eye in her first test for the team in July 2012, when she ran into a stationary lorry during testing. She made a remarkable recovery but her death was attributed to neurological injuries sustained in the accident.

The team will understandably have few fond memories of Suzuka, then, but as Niki Lauda, who withdrew from the championship-deciding Japanese Grand Prix in Fuji in 1976 because he considered the weather conditions too bad, reminded everyone present: "Motor racing is dangerous. We get used to it if nothing happens and then suddenly we're all surprised."

Which is blunt yet possibly acceptably so, from a driver who came back from a terrible accident at the Nürburgring that year. Perhaps this incident is one that will further galvanise the sport to even greater efforts to avoid any further unwanted surprises.

(Guardian Service)