Footage of Bianchi's crash

[j2 lot]

Good find.
Sound reasoning and his comments about the speed under double yellows is what most people who have seen the footage must be already thinking.

[campbell]

He has a Diffuse Axonal Injury. Strictly speaking this can simply be concussion but I think that would be too much to hope for.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_axonal_injury

Fingers crossed for the poor fellow.

[j2 lot]

That's quite bleak reading

[tut]

Just about sums up Schuey's condition as well.

tut

[Scuffers]

To see the yellow/green flag in context it is best to look at the whole video here: http://www.f1today.net/en/news/bvideob- ... es-bianchi. The double yellow was replaced by a green only a few seconds before the crash. Technically that may be correct as the tractor was moving past the post but might have given the drivers the wrong impression that the incident was cleared.

Concerning/confusing is the fact it appears a marshall is still at the original accident site, back-turned, picking up debris adjacent to the barrier Sutil struck... when the green is waved. He's obviously not beyond the accident site, and not beyond where whatever being moved out the way (Sutil's suspended car being the farthest danger) originally prompted that post to be double-yellow...

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and hindsight questions why María de Villota's terrible accident didn't trigger the fitting of skirts of some kind (who knows, perhaps that has already been under review since then) around anything that a car could strike/submarine within a circuit. It would also seem logical for any vehicles to always flash amber lights when within the circuit - as a last resort to warming drivers - this tractor doesn't have one.


But this doesn't help Bianchi I hope he makes a full recovery.

the whole flag thing is bollocks.

its brought about by people who do not understand the flag system, period. the flags shown were correct. (this is no different from seeing a de-restriction sign at the edge of a village, does not mean just cause you can see it, you can diss-regard the speed limit BEFORE you get there.

back to the acident itself, consider this,

if the JCB had not been there, how many marshals would have been hit?

if the JCB had effective side protection to prevent a car from going under it, it would be the same as running into a steel block, how is that any better? the impact would have been massively higher as he car would then basically stop in no distance at all vs. what it do do.

if the JCB had not been there, what would Jules have hit next and would that have been significantly better?

Long and short of it is he was going way too fast, double yellows means SLOW THE F**K DOWN and be prepared to STOP

looking at the FIA data feed, he was doing well over 200Kmh just before he hit the JCB, that's not slowing down.

Sorry to be harsh, but the drivers need to take some responsibility for their actions.

[r10crw]

Often in these cases people jump around looking to assign blame but as the guy is in hospital fighting for his life he seems to have been ignored by the public. Simon sadly your quite right, the driver has to be responasable for the action however sad the outcome may be.

I sometimes things its all too much cotton wool, crashes like this do give you a scare but every driver is aware that its a high risk sport and for the public its part of the allure.

[jason]

its brought about by people who do not understand the flag system, period. the flags shown were correct. (this is no different from seeing a de-restriction sign at the edge of a village, does not mean just cause you can see it, you can diss-regard the speed limit BEFORE you get there.

(my bold highlight)

But that's the point. The flags shown can't have been correct, since for a period that post waved double yellow, and then that same post waved green --- but during both flag states there were marshalls operating at Sutil's original accident location, ie. at the farthest point around the track.


I would assume most posters here understand the flag posts are the same as speed limit signs. I also agree there has been an issue about respecting yellow/double-yellows for a long time - drivers adopting a letter of rule rather than spirit of rule approach to slowing. However, is there any evidence in the public domain yet that states Bianchi's accident was not result of a mechanical/electronic failure on his car?

[graeme]

As far as I can tell, the same post waved green flag only once the jcb moved Sutil's car back to a position which was before that post, which means that beyond that post the track was clear, so green is absolutely correct. I don't get where the confusion lies... what am I missing? What have I not seen? There's soooo much rage on facebook about the flags that I must be missing something... all looks proper to me.

[jason]

^

but the point is, as I made earlier, that though Sutil's car was moved a marshal remained at the original location, in front of the disturbed barrier, picking up debris. You can clearly see him in the video.

So the track wasn't clear. The farthest-most point of danger/obstacle (whatever we call it) had not actually moved, yet.


<edit to add> you can just see the yellow flag in top corner of David's video link, before it switches to green, and see the marshall who stays at the original position: http://www.f1today.net/en/news/bvideob- ... es-bianchi

[graeme]

Thanks, I see him now.... the guy in blue. Tricky perspective, but probably a good call, that was a bit premature with the green. Could the flag guy see the pick-up guy when he was bent down? Who knows. Regardless, Bianchi never made it to that green flag, so was still under waved yellows, so not a contributing factor, just an incidental mistake in the background.

[jason]

Yes, I agree, the perspective is tricky. We have to assume Sutil's car was not significantly beyond the barrier contact point when initially recovered, and we have to assume the marshal can be seen by the flag post. It's semantics, but important in the flag discussion which seems to approve the change of colour.

Also agree, like you say, it should have no bearing on Bianchi's accident since he obviously wasn't past that post.

[BigD]

I don't really think the flag colour at that post makes any difference to the outcome. It's the flags before he goes off that are important and no one seems to be arguing that these were double waved yellows so slow down and be ready to stop. If he had done that at the previous flag posts then he wouldn't have gone off at the speed he did, if at all. Imagine if he had collected a Marshall rather than the jcb, it would be a completely different scenario if there was a dead Marshall and the driver was fine.

Doesn't mean it's not just a simple mistake or alter the fact that the poor guy is critical, hope he makes a recovery.

[jason]

I've not been a fan of his during the Schumacher injury business, but this blog post by Gary Hartstein illustrates the erosion of yellow respect he witnessed during his attendance at drivers' briefings.

Of course, we still don't know if Bianchi didn't suffer a car failure?

[graeme]

http://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/2271/

I've not been a fan of his during the Schumacher injury business, but this blog post by Gary Hartstein illustrates the erosion of yellow respect he witnessed during his attendance at drivers' briefings.

Of course, we still don't know if Bianchi didn't suffer a car failure?

Keep up at the back!

Benefit of the doubt until Bianchi (hopefully) tells us himself what happened.

[jason]

Oops. Sorry, Graeme