Dreadful news

[Dibby]

Lifting a digger with your head isn't going to end well. 

 

Fingers crossed for the poor guy, worst ending to an F1 race in a long, long time

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

I agree.  With the other car being lifted, most of the weight would have been on the front axle, not the back.  That would have made the lift of the vehicle not need as much energy as you might expect.  However the inertia of the digger would have been considerable to make it lift and rotate as much as it did.

 

I hope the poor guy recovers.

I agree too - it occurred to me that the cantilevered 600kg on the front helped, but the sheer inertial mass of the counterbalance on the back of the crane is still huge. That he wasn't killed outright is a blessing I suppose, but let's hope he doesn't end up like poor Michael Schumacher.

[tisme]

That must be the worst nightmare for anyone driving a single seater

 

As others have said, it's bizarre that in this F1 safety conscious era (which I totally agree with providing we don't end up with full roll cages) that the types of vehicles some circuits use to recover cars look like they've just come off a building site ! I understand the FIA will be looking into this and about time, but for Jules Bianchi, we can only prey.

 

Marussia must be really down after this - especially following the accident with Maria de Villota at Duxford. I hope the team bounces back and Max can carry on - we need these teams otherwise Bernie will just have three makes of car on the grid if he has his way.

[Captain Colonial]

Was thinking that the available technology makes it quite feasible for the FIA to have speed limiter zones.  Drivers already have pit lane speed limiter buttons to ensure they stay exactly on the limit in and out of the pits, and there are DRS activation points and zones.  Should be possible for cars to be limited by race officials to something like 50% of normal speed inside areas with double waved yellows, so all cars are slowed to a safe speed and no driver is disadvantaged over his competitors.

[dombanks]

Was thinking that the available technology makes it quite feasible for the FIA to have speed limiter zones.  Drivers already have pit lane speed limiter buttons to ensure they stay exactly on the limit in and out of the pits, and there are DRS activation points and zones.  Should be possible for cars to be limited by race officials to something like 50% of normal speed inside areas with double waved yellows, so all cars are slowed to a safe speed and no driver is disadvantaged over his competitors.

as soon as you start going down this route tho you might as well turn it into a radio controlled car race. limit here/ limit there/stop this automatically/ allow that that. etc.

 

no problem with the principal of having an aid for the driver the speed lane one is simply an aid isnt it? it doesnt come on automatically. so 1 waved is a warning to slow down, 2 waved means slow down/prepare to stop, were 2 being waved at that time? so maybe 2 waved should be no more than XX rpm or mph and a button to help do so but most certainly shouldnt be an auto cut of the engine.

[Captain Colonial]

so maybe 2 waved should be no more than XX rpm or mph and a button to help do so

 

I think this is my point here.  Hitting the digger was awful of course, but the primary cause was that Bianchi was still doing a pretty high rate of knots when he came off the track and would have come to grief whatever he hit - he would have still hit the wall or shot through the wall gap into who knows what if the digger hadn't been there.  Drivers are supposed to lift off at a double waved yellow, but they know the other drivers won't be doing so very much at all and could lose time and places.  The telemetry from his car to see if he'd lifted or not would be helpful.  There need to be clear rules as to what action a driver must take under a double waved yellow, what speed is allowed, and a clear and immediate penalty for not doing so and endangering their lives and those of the marshals.  Technology could play an important role in helping drivers.  The digger wasn't the cause, just the collateral.

[pistonbroke]

Talk today on BBC news Frank Williams (sir) suggests having enclosed cockpits fitted on all F1 cars 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Talk today on BBC news Frank Williams (sir) suggests having enclosed cockpits fitted on all F1 cars 

In this case it would not have made a scrap of difference Bernie. Leaving Sutil's car where it stopped would have been safer, as it happens, but that's not a strategy for all races of course.

[Sparkymart]

Talk today on BBC news Frank Williams (sir) suggests having enclosed cockpits fitted on all F1 cars

wouldn't they just be Le Man's prototypes if they went closed cockpits?? And I don't think a closed cockpit would have been much help to Jules.. Massa walked away from his flip earlier in the season so the strength is there in the cars, Jules was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, Maybe a maximum hight limit to the recovery vehicles (obtained by the fitment of a skirt) so the cars nose cone can do what it's designed to do and absorb the impact and not just go straight under the object

[Terry Everall]

But as I STATED BEFORE  THE DOUBLE YELLOWS WERE NO LONGER BEING WAVED at the incident post and they were displaying a GREEN flag which means TRACK IS CLEAR. The previous post would have held a single yellow but the drivers would know that at the next post....Where the incident was.... would be green

[greenandmean]

I disagree Terry the flag point was past the incident (although difficult to tell from the camera angle) so green was correct.

The second stationary yellow after an incident was done away with years ago so is straight from waved yellow to green.

This is assuming drivers could actually see any flags through the murk and spray,

but I don't think flags were an issue in this instance, wrong place at the wrong time.

The issue is large snatch vehicles being trackside, with all the money in F1 cranes behind the barriers should be the norm, the problem comes with the lower levels of motorsport were the money is not as readily available.

Japan is very lucky not to be burying a couple of marshals this week, who unlike the highly paid drivers are unpaid volunteers and need/deserve all the protection available, cost should not be an issue.

[Terry Everall]

It looked to be about 5m - 10m away but I agree that the marshals should be better protected during the race and recovery process

[Meakin]

I think a bit of prospective is needed what happened was tragic but extremely rare. I've watched motorsport both live and on TV 2 wheeled and 4 for a long time and never seen it happen before. There have been near misses with marshals but having done that, i knoe you are instructed to watch out and there is someone there who's job it is to watch for such things. To actually hit a service vehicle I have never seen before.

I have seen multiple crashes where cars and bikes have hit previous striken vehicles but never anything like what happened to poor bianchi.

Unfortunately it was one of those things that can happen in motorsport

My best wishes and hopes for him and his family.

Paul

[greenandmean]

Paul they are not all near misses but fortunately rare, since I started marshaling in 1976 I have attended the funerals of 3 friends killed whilst marshaling.

One of the first things I was taught was if one car has gone off there is absolutely nothing to stop another going off in the same place and whilst it is rare to hit a service vehicle those vehicles were introduced to make it safer for marshals to save them having to go trackside to push cars to a place of safety.

Possibly time for a rethink.

[s2rrr]

In reality if it is possible to happen the probabilities are that eventually it will happen. This has been a tragedy which should and could have been avoided. remember Jackie Stewart and the rest of the drivers and pit crew going out and fitting bolts to crash barriers many many years ago to make the point that this is a dangerous sport and whilst we sit back seeing massive crashes generally without injury the potential is always there. Its all about risk and the likelihood of an event happening, I am not one of those that jumps on the Health an Safety bandwagon but in this case and unfortunately after the event it seems that recovery vehicles on the circuit should be phased out or if necessary the race speed must be reduced appropriately. We don't want to hog tie the sport with too many ridiculous restrictions but having seen the fully video and the speed that the two vehicles impacted something very wrong happened. The Williams team have made comments about cockpits but in reality when you hit a, what 3-5 tonne, crane with a relatively flimsy race car its not the crane that will suffer.

 

On the other hand if we attempt to reduce all risk we wouldn't be able to function, the industry wording is ALARP As Low as Reasonably Practicable and its the interpretation of what is reasonable at the time of assessment. But things have a habit of changing, in this case I'm sure rescue vehicles and flagging will be restricted/improved significantly. To knee jerk and react is also a negative sign implying some form of culpability, you can't win, can you.

 

A tragedy and things must and will change.

 

Bob