Japan F1

[BratPack]

FIA just confirmed it, he has a "severe" head injury and will be transferred to Intensive Care after surgery. Condition: Critical

[Grazz]

FIA just confirmed it, he has a "severe" head injury and will be transferred to Intensive Care after surgery. Condition: Critical

Thanks BP. Terrible news.

[upthemaidens]

 :(      those cranes need some type of skirt, to give some protection from an F1 car going underneath.
     Though they shouldn't be placed in dangerous positions unless under safety car. (on a wet track as well)  >:(

  Hope Bianchi pulls through, very sad.

[Grazz]

:(      those cranes need some type of skirt, to give some protection from an F1 car going underneath.
     Though they shouldn't be placed in dangerous positions unless under safety car. (on a wet track as well)  >:(

  Hope Bianchi pulls through, very sad.

Have to agree, in those conditions on that corner the safety car should of been sent out straight away one would think.

[Mr.Craig]

Currently in surgery according to his father.

Where did you see this Mr C ?.

Reddit via Twitter via a French website.

[Grazz]

FIA head of communications Matteo Bonciani released this statement on Bianchi's condition:

On lap 42, Adrian Sutil lost control of his car, spun and hit the tyre barrier on the outside of Turn 7. The marshals displayed double waved yellow flags before the corner to warn drivers of the incident. A recovery vehicle was dispatched in order to lift the car and take it to a place of safety behind the guardrail. While this was being done the driver of car 17, Jules Bianchi, lost control of his car, travelled across the run-off area and hit the back of the tractor.

Once the marshals reported that the driver was injured, medical teams were dispatched and the Safety Car was deployed. These were followed by an extrication team and an ambulance.

The driver was removed from the car, taken to the circuit medical centre and then by ambulance to Mie General Hospital.

The CT scan shows that he has suffered a severe head injury and he is currently undergoing surgery. Following this he will be moved to intensive care where he will be monitored

Mie General Hospital will issue an update as soon as further information becomes available.

Matteo Bonciani,

Formula One Head of Communications & Media Delegate

[Nige]

 :(

[Ricochet]

Poor guy, hoping all goes well with the surgery

[tor01doc]

A case of ratings before safety?

[elephants]

Simply horrible, hope the dude pulls through.

[Vinny]

I wasn't following the race but it's never good to see someone go down. Sounds terrible, good luck to him. :-\

[Grazz]

A case of ratings before safety?

+1
All to often Drivers and Riders are asked to perform in conditions that are to dangerous. Thankfully they are good enough to deal with it 9/10 but every now and then the worst does happen. The mighty dollar wins again leaving some poor bloke fighting for his life.

[Grazz]

French sports newspaper L'Equipe are reporting that Bianchi's operation has now been completed - and crucially they say the young Frenchman is not on life support.

We will bring you official confirmation of that as and when we get it.

L'Equipe claim their information comes from the Ferrari press office.

We do know that Ferrari team boss Marco Mattiacci did go straight to the hospital after Bianchi was taken there by ambulance.

The Marussia driver is being treated at the Mie General Hospital.



Ferrari have denied they spoke at all with the French paper. :-\

[Mr.Craig]

A case of ratings before safety?

I don't believe that was the case, but business interests did play a part. It was Honda who were pushing back at the FIA to keep the race at the scheduled time and in terms of the incident, it is very hard to determine conditions or sections of the track have become too dangerous until there are multiple incidents. Normally those incidents are minor spins or shunts but in this case it was more serious. If anything I think Charlie is on the cautious side when making calls about whether to race or not.

I think most F1 watchers have been expecting something like this for a while. Brundle has been banging on for years about the risks of having these recovery vehicles on the circuit while racing continues. Also, the quality of the marshalling varies quite a bit between countries. Sometimes they don't have a bloody clue what they're doing and it takes half a dozen laps for cars to be removed.

[Grazz]

Felipe Massa says the Japanese Grand Prix was started "too early" and "finished too late".
The Williams driver said he was "screaming on the radio" in the early part of the race because he felt the conditions were too bad to run the race.
"I was already screaming on the radio five laps before that there was too much water on the track but then they just took a little bit too long and it was dangerous.

Adrian Sutil says the race could have been stopped earlier - but also says he wasn't consulted about whether to run the race earlier in the day to avoid the worst of the weather, as had been suggested by some in F1.
"Maybe we should have stopped the race a bit earlier.
We weren't asked about our opinion (about starting the race earlier) so there's nothing really I can say."
"In the end, when it got dark, you couldn't see where the wet patches were and that is why I lost the car and it really surprised me.

Byron Young reports: "More than one driver is saying the race should have started earlier Sunday or have been run on Saturday.

Retired triple world champion and Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda agreed: 'They could have started earlier, there's no question about it,' said the Austrian.
'It was foreseeable. They could have started the race at one but I don't take these decisions.'



Theres a few that were not happy with the race organisers for various reasons.