FORUMula1.com

[Jabberwocky]

holy s***

[spankyham]

holy s***

Indeed.

Once you've raced, even at amateur levels, you know a green flag is displayed after you've passed the incident. In fact, I'll give the quote from the F1.com site "The driver has passed the potential danger point and prohibitions imposed by yellow flags have been lifted." The other thing most people know is that the first and last yellow is usually at the scene itself.

The SC should have been deployed immediately.

The PUs contribution to the danger needs to be analyzed and addressed - hopefully before someone else is hurt.

[sagi58]

It doesn't even look like he braked... at all...

[spankyham]

Quite a few people including drivers have stated there was standing water there, so most likely he was aquaplaning and had little to no control over the car.

It was so stupid the way it was handled. Firstly race control knew full well Sutil was ok and he was immediately out of the car. Second there was no need to place the giant steel tractor in front of the safety barriers while the cars were racing.

They should have left the car, immediately deployed the SC and full course yellow which forces drivers to slow to the required delta. Then they could send the tractor out, recover the car and be on their way. If that was done, the flag at the incident would have remained double yellow and at worst Jules would have run into the safety barrier as Sutil did.

*** EDIT - It looks to me like the official seen waving the green flag in the video changed from yellow to green over 10 seconds before Jules impacted

[spankyham]

Andrew Benson has tweeted Jule's family has made a statement confirming his injury is a DAI .... there isn't a sad enough face to express my feelings if that's true

[spankyham]

A more extensive article from James Allen >>here<<.

[sagi58]

Oh, my!! My heart just dropped like a stone!
Here's hoping Jules is one of the lucky ones and makes a full recovery!

[spankyham]

..... so after reading now the Jules thread in the mia scuderia lounge, I wonder how you can have such laxed opinions on safety in one situation and such harsh opinions on safety in another .....

Just on a point of order WB, when a member posts in the Mia Scuderia Lounge that's their choice and it shouldn't be posted elsewhere without their agreement. Similar if you like to the rules about PMs not being posted

On your point above, if you can't see the difference between an F1 car, not yet racing, taking off from stationary in a straight line on new tires on dry day and an F1 car at 200+KPH on a curve in wet atrocious conditions near the end of a grueling race at a known dangerous corner with standing water on the track.... well if you can't see that difference then there's nothing I can do to explain why I see those as not the same safety situations.

The comparison which I believe has relevance is the support for rule changes and extra track session as a reaction to the tire situation last year and the Jule's accident. We had rules changed mid-season. The change was implemented within one race, based on potential danger. Now we have proven danger and wretched results but people want to ignore it and put it down to acceptable dangers of racing.

IMO there should be a proper investigation, and, yes, if proven of benefit to change the rules mid-season again. I for one don't want to have to wait for another driver to suffer before we get action.

[sagi58]

Well said!!

((On both counts!!))

[spankyham]

I sincerely hope it will not take another accident and endangering of another one of our drivers before something is done!

There has been some talk that Jules was traveling faster than anyone else. I was able to find the official live telemetry for the race and have posted the relevant bit below. Anyone claiming Jules was travelling faster is talking absolute and of course any conclusions drawn from that are equally total

You will note from the telemetry that Jules was possibly the slowest driver (by a kph or two) at that point on the track of the drivers with speed display. Particularly note that Chilton, in the same car is significantly faster than Jules at the point.

Also note from this feed that the official readout shows the marshall at the point of the accident was supposed to be displaying yellow all the time. We know that wasn't the case from the video of the crash.

So why did Jules go off when quite a few others were going through there faster than he did? Some of the most telling information comes from Adrian Sutil. Sutil was immediately behind Jules when he had his off and then, was out of the car watching as Jules had his terrible accident. In Adrian's own words about his own off he said "I had a big snap, and went into the wall". One other factor was that Jules, on that last lap of his, was pretty much alone on the track. I'd guess he was over 15 seconds behind the car ahead of him and couldn't see a car behind him.

Why the SC should most definitely have been deployed? This was an absolute no-brainer. The conditions coupled with that particular corner plus the other elements listed below - all of which were well known to all the race officials - should have led to the SC being called for as soon as Sutil's car hit the barriers. Does this mean that SC's would have to be called out every time a car goes off the circuit - absolutely not! The placement and conditions need to be interpreted in each case. The thing is, in this case, it was absolutely clear the SC had to be deployed. One thing mandatory for this case was that the tractor should never have been allowed so close to the track, in these conditions, without the SC already being on track and the cars formed up.

The contributing facts AFAIC
1 - SC was no deployed when it should have been and definitely before the tractor was sent out
2 - green flag being waved preemptively, probably in expectation of the Sauber & tractor being clear soon
3 - the torque of the new PUs
4 - the existing rain and that it was getting heavier
5 - the failing light combined with the new steering wheels
6 - the standing water - built up by no cars immediately ahead of Jules on the track pumping some water clear
7 - being in a backmarker car with less aero stability that the front runners
8 - the condition of his tires

One more thing that I think speaks to how much difficult these cars are now to be kept safe, comes again from Sutil, who is imminently more qualified than most to speak on this "but no one knows what it’s like for us in the cars, and with these cars which are so difficult to drive right now, without grip, and a massive amount of power"



I sincerely hope it will not take another accident and endangering of another one of our drivers before something is done!

[sagi58]

Bianchi crash means earlier start times for five races

Five hosts on this year's 20-race F1 calendar will see their respective grands prix start earlier than usual in 2015. After Jules Bianchi's horror crash at Suzuka in fading light late last season, the FIA vowed to look into ensuring races are no longer started too close to dusk.

The trend outside of Europe in recent years has been for later race starts, to create better television viewing times for the sport's bulk European audience. But it emerged last week that Melbourne, whose season opener at Albert Park usually starts at 5pm, had received a request to reverse the scheduled start time by several hours.

It also emerged that Malaysia and Russia would similarly have earlier race start times this year. Now, in a document released by the Bernie Ecclestone-run Formula One Management, it has been confirmed that five races - Australia, Malaysia, Russia and also China and Japan - will all see their grands prix start one hour earlier than in 2014.