"Didn't slow sufficiently" - FIA releases expert panel report into Bianchi crash

A 396-page report into the circumstances surrounding Jules Bianchi’s accident at the Japanese Grand Prix has concluded that the Frenchman "did not slow sufficiently" under yellow caution flags and adds that while “a number of key issues occurred, which may have contributed to the accident, none alone caused it”. Furthermore it finds that “it is not feasible to mitigate the injuries Bianchi suffered by either enclosing the driver’s cockpit, or fitting skirts to the crane”.

In the wake of Bianchi’s Suzuka crash, in which he sustained serious head injuries following a collision with a recovery vehicle, FIA president Jean Todt established a heavy-hitting 10-man panel to examine the causes of the collision and the response to it by race officials.

Chaired by FIA Safety Commission president Peter Wright and including former Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn and former Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali, the panel today issued its report which suggests a number of factors may have contributed to Bianchi crashing heavily on lap 43 of the race.

It states that a “semi-dry racing line at T7 was abruptly narrowed by water draining onto the track and flowing downhill along it. Both Sutil, and Bianchi one lap later, lost control at this point in T7”. It also crucially says that “Bianchi did not slow sufficiently to avoid losing control at the same point on the track as Sutil” and that “if drivers adhere to the requirements of double yellow flags, as set out in Appendix H, Art. 2.4.5.1.b, then neither competitors nor officials should be put in immediate or physical danger”.

The report continues by saying that “the actions taken following Sutil’s accident were consistent with the regulations, and their interpretation following 384 incidents in the preceding eight years. Without the benefit of hindsight, there is no apparent reason why the Safety Car should have been deployed either before or after Sutil’s accident.”

The panel also concluded that Bianchi “over-controlled the oversteering car, such that he left the track earlier than Sutil, and headed towards a point ‘up-stream’ along the barrier. Unfortunately, the mobile crane was in front of this part of the barrier, and he struck and under-ran the rear of it at high speed”.

“During the two seconds Bianchi’s car was leaving the track and traversing the run-off area, he applied both throttle and brake together, using both feet,” the report added. “The FailSafe algorithm is designed to over-ride the throttle and cut the engine, but was inhibited by the Torque Coordinator, which controls the rear Brake-by-Wire system. Bianchi’s Marussia has a unique design of BBW, which proved to be incompatible with the FailSafe settings.

“The fact that the FailSafe did not disqualify the engine torque requested by the driver may have affected the impact velocity; it has not been possible to reliably quantify this.”

Finally, it concludes that “it is not feasible to mitigate the injuries Bianchi suffered by either enclosing the driver’s cockpit, or fitting skirts to the crane”.

“Neither approach is practical due to the very large forces involved in the accident between a 700kg car striking a 6500kg crane at a speed of 126kph,” the panel stated. “There is simply insufficient impact structure on a F1 car to absorb the energy of such an impact without either destroying the driver’s survival cell, or generating non-survivable decelerations.

“It is considered fundamentally wrong to try and make an impact between a racing car and a large and heavy vehicle survivable. It is imperative to prevent a car ever hitting the crane and/or the marshals working near it.”

The report makes a number of recommendations for safety improvements, some of which were already being developed, with several being approved for 2015 use by the WMSC, including the introduction of the Virtual Safety Car system that was trialled during practice sessions of the closing rounds of the 2014 season and changes to the regulations governing Super Licence qualification, which were already being discussed following Max Verstappen being signed for Toro Rosso for 2015.

The panel is also calling for a review of safety critical software, improvements to track drainage to avoid conditions similar to those seen at the crash location Suzuka, and the provision of time =for F1’s tyre supplier to “adequately test wet weather tyres between F1 seasons”. It is also seeking a new ‘four-hour rule’, “a regulation or guideline be established such that the Start time of an event shall not be less than four hours before either sunset or dusk, except in the case of night races and finally recommends “that the F1 Calendar is reviewed in order to avoid, where possible, races taking place during local rainy seasons”.