Jules Bianchi suffers head injury after accident in Japanese Grand Prix

Jules Bianchi of Marussia has suffered a severe head injury and is undergoing surgery after suffering a horrible accident in the Japanese Grand Prix. Following surgery he is to be moved to intensive care.

He had spun off at turn 7 and hit a recovery vehicle that was picking up Adrian Sutil’s Sauber which had hit the wall at the same corner the lap before. It appears as if the Marussia struck the back of the tractor causing the race to be stopped with nine laps to the end.

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

The Grand Prix took place at its scheduled time despite the threat of a super typhoon heading towards the circuit in Suzuka. There will be a lot of conjecture about what should and shouldn’t have taken place today and at what time but the fact is it did, and I don’t think the horrible accident to have injured Bianchi should affect people’s opinions on that.

When Bianchi’s Marussia hit into the JCB that was picking up Sutil’s already crashed Sauber it was nothing to do with if and when the race should have taken place, it was just a terrible accident. The rain had got heavier after a convenient break in the weather allowed the race to go ahead but an incident like this could even have happened at a dry race, although as Sutil said after he believes a safety car might have been appropriate to allow his car to be rescued. He also reported ‘aquaplaning at this corner’ which appears to have caught out him and Bianchi.

Having said that it’s not your usual situation when there’s a rain storm and you can’t judge how much rain there will be. They knew a typhoon was heading for the track days ago and that the start time was only two and a half hours before sunset. There was obvious potential for the race to be delayed and they had plenty of opportunity to move the race to an earlier start time but the circuit owners Honda refused. This seems like it would have been the sensible option but as so often happens in Formula 1, the sensible option is often the route least likely to be taken.

However, in the end I don’t believe that this had any effect on the race, it was just a wet race and it certainly didn’t really contribute to Bianchi’s accident. With hindsight, perhaps given the conditions there should have been a safety car when Sutil crashed.

For the future maybe there should be more cranes around circuits to pick up a car without having to send a recovery vehicle on to the track. Formula 1 cars are very low down and if striking a higher vehicle can have terrible consequences as Marussia know from the terrible incident with Maria de Villota during straight line testing in 2012.

Bianchi is part of the Ferrari driver academy and has been tipped to one day driver for the Scuderia after impressing during the last two years and scoring Marussia’s first points earlier this year. It can only be hoped he makes a full recovery.

all photos taken from autosport.com