Grand Prix Rejects

Jules Bianchi is thankfully in a stable, albeit critical condition, according to Sky F1.

We all wish Jules a speedy recovery, however this doesn't change the fact that unfortunately he has suffered a very serious injury, and therefore may have to undertake a long recovery - although I am sure I speak for all of us when I say I wish for this to not be the case. The point of this thread is not to be insensitive, just to provide a dedicated thread for news and well wishing regarding Jules.

ForzaJules

Yes, I think this thread is a good idea. Me and my girlfriend were shocked when we acknowledged what happened. At first I was pretty sure the "J. Bianchi" lable on the beneath the Sutil's car was just a mistake. I hope Jules recovers soon.

Get well Jules. Hope to see you back in a racing car ASAP.

God I thought the worst when I saw the thread title - but good idea to separate it from the main Japanese GP discussion thread. Fingers crossed he recovers.

Having now seen the crash (two people I know both shared a link on facebook) I now wish I hadn't, possibly the most horrific thing I have seen I hope he pulls through ....

For people wanting to watch the footage of the crash: i advice against watching it.

Really hope he gets trough this and makes it trough without too much brain damage. To be honest, i don't have a good feeling about this. I don't think he's not going to make it, but well, he will never be the same again.

I hope we see him back one day and he finally gets the chance of that Ferrari drive.

Which sounds sadly similar to what many of us were saying about Robert Kubica a few years back, of course... Somewhere, in some parallel universe there's a Ferrari line-up with both of them in it.

Even if he doesn't make it back to F1, let's hope he recovers to have a good life.

I can only really echo what's been said here. My Marussia jacket hangs on my door as I wish him a good, healthy recovery and maybe, just maybe, hope to see him back and battling again some time

Sheesh. I mean, I've seen Tom Pryce's crash but that was bad. Also, Adrian Sutil must be really strong to have stayed calm there.

Just heard about this on Twitter - tomorrow's going to be a Dress for Jules day; the idea being that we all wear something red or F1 related to show support, if you can.

Sadly, I fear that the best scenario that could be hoped for is that Bianchi does indeed race a Ferrari. But in sportscar racing, at Le Mans. I sincerely hope that Bianchi does make a full recovery and ends up with an F1 drive at Ferrari, but looking back at Karl Wendlinger and Luciano Burti as two examples from around 10 and 20 years ago, I suspect sportscars would end up giving him a decent career.

But of course, this is all speculation and we still don't really have much information to go on, but it is difficult to hope for the best when head injuries are involved.

Forza Jules indeed. As I said on the other thread, waiting for news like this is awful and reminiscent of the waiting of news on Schumacher, and indeed other injured drivers in the past.

And as I said with Schumacher, meaningful quality of life is the outcome we must hope for.

Nice initiative, Pasta.

Forza Jules

LellaLombardi wrote:And as I said with Schumacher, meaningful quality of life is the outcome we must hope for.

This is what I was meaning to convey by my post. Hope it came across like that.

I echo the sentiments already posted here. Get well soon, Jules.

What's kind of nice to see is that social media has decided that tomorrow is #DressForJules day. I know it has all those connotations of attention-seeking and whatnot, but I think it's at least a nice idea

Difficult to find the words, but come on Jules, you can do it.

This wrote:For people wanting to watch the footage of the crash: i advice against watching it.

They just showed it on the early evening news. There was no warning, though they had the good sense not to refer to it as spectacular.

Having seen it, I think one of two things happened - either his brakes failed, or he was already unconscious when he left the track. There was no attempt to slow the car down, and that's a deep run-off area.

Captain Hammer wrote:

This wrote:For people wanting to watch the footage of the crash: i advice against watching it.

They just showed it on the early evening news. There was no warning, though they had the good sense not to refer to it as spectacular.

Having seen it, I think one of two things happened - either his brakes failed, or he was already unconscious when he left the track. There was no attempt to slow the car down, and that's a deep run-off area.

To understand, you need to experience an aquaplanning. Anyway, with rain and gravel, locking the tires took some time to slow the car down #ForzaJules

I have experienced it. And from the video, Bianchi was going extremely quickly.

Deep isn't the word I would use describing the Dunlop runoff area. Bianchi went off the track straight so all the gravel did was bump the car - therefore the brakes kinda aren't as effective as in straight line braking on asphalt. A brake failure is the last explanation I would think of.

Statement from the Bianchi family states that Jules has a diffuse axonal injury to his brain. Devastating news to hear.

Forza Jules!

East Londoner wrote:Statement from the Bianchi family states that Jules has a diffuse axonal injury to his brain. Devastating news to hear.

Really bad news. Most diffuse axonal injury patients don't even wake up.

According to Wikipedia "Diffuse axonal injury (DAI) is one of the most common and devastating types of traumatic brain injury, meaning that damage occurs over a more widespread area than in focal brain injury. DAI, which refers to extensive lesions in white matter tracts, is one of the major causes of unconsciousness and persistent vegetative state after head trauma. It occurs in about half of all cases of severe head trauma."

"The outcome is frequently coma, with over 90% of patients with severe DAI never regaining consciousness. Those who do wake up often remain significantly impaired."

This is bad.

EDIT: I was just browsing the comments on an F1 Fanatic article on this and one user said that according to the Dutch Wikipedia DAI can be anything from very minimal temporary damage to severe damage. It also says that most patients gradually lose symptoms within a few months. It seems that there could be more hope for Jules if the Dutch Wikipedia is correct.

It's natural to paint a grim picture, but we still don't know how severe it is. We'll have to wait on that whilst doctors administer tests; they know more than we do with regards to head trauma and so it's pointless speculating about the severity of his condition.

Will he race again? I don't think he will.

Here's what Gary Hartstein has to say by way of explanation of the injury. Not comfortable reading.

http://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/1 ... al-injury/

The crucial element is how severe the injury is. Severe DAI is really bad news, but it may be in Jules' case that the severity isn't that high, in which case there's a better chance of recovery. With that said, I highly doubt he'll ever drive a car again, even if he does recover. I think the best we can hope for is that he is able to gain consciousness and hasn't lost too much of his ability to speak, his motor skills, etc. so that he is still largely the guy we knew before. Asking a lot though.

AndreaModa wrote:The crucial element is how severe the injury is. Severe DAI is really bad news, but it may be in Jules' case that the severity isn't that high, in which case there's a better chance of recovery. With that said, I highly doubt he'll ever drive a car again, even if he does recover. I think the best we can hope for is that he is able to gain consciousness and hasn't lost too much of his ability to speak, his motor skills, etc. so that he is still largely the guy we knew before. Asking a lot though.

Will be a great victory for Jules if he can recovery with most of his functions.

Dr Gary Hartstein has given more info on DAI. And he has also written on what he thinks ought to happen. Interesting reading...

Completely heartbreaking. I really do hope he ends on the lucky side of the scale. The guy who scored the first two points ever for any of The Three does not deserve to end like this.

James Allen's take on the subject: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/10/b ... condition/

I'm not sure of the accuracy of his statement on Hammond's injury but if it is indeed accurate it should serve as an encouraging example of what could happen.

Simtek wrote:James Allen's take on the subject: http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2014/10/b ... condition/

I'm not sure of the accuracy of his statement on Hammond's injury but if it is indeed accurate it should serve as an encouraging example of what could happen.

I guess that it is the case that he is trying to put a positive spin on the situation, but it is worth noting that, according to Hammond, it took a very long time for him to actually recover from his injuries - he has since admitted that he has no recollection at all of his return to the show, despite that being nearly four months after his accident (it's just a mass of confused images to him), and indeed more than 18 months later he admitted that he was suffering from severe psychiatric problems as a direct consequence of his injuries.

As others have said, whilst we can hope that Jules can make as swift and as painless a recovery as possible, at the same time the initial prognosis does not sound promising. Hopefully it is the case that the initial reports are rather pessimistic and that Jules can make a solid recovery.

Terrible news. As others have said, outcomes from this type of brain injury are rarely good. Hoping he is the one who can buck the trend.

To add to Hammond, he has also mentioned having short term memory problems and part of the reason we see him on TV so much at the moment is that he does not know how long he will be able to keep working.

dr-baker wrote:Dr Gary Hartstein has given more info on DAI. And he has also written on what he thinks ought to happen. Interesting reading...

That second blog post is spot on. It's hard to take because it essentially implies that Jules was at fault, and unfortunately, in my view, he was. The flag rules have long been abused, yellows aren't treated with respect and the marshals are increasingly vulnerable. If they implement the flag rules properly a horrible incident like this might never happen again.

I don't know what to think of Dr. Hartstein's article. I agree that flag rules have been abused and it is something that needs to change, and promptly, but by the same token I feel that he is missing the point. Given the conditions of the race at that time - low visibility, rain starting to fall harder - the safety car should have been brought out. A commenter posted what I thought was a good comment saying that course vehicles, be them cranes, ambulances, doctor's cars are meant to remove risk; putting one of those vehicles - in this case a Caterpillar D910H crane - along with a group of marshals onto the track with no neutralization aside from the yellows in typhoon conditions was almost asking for disaster. Maybe it's acceptable in normal dry conditions, but certainly not like what happened that day. As I said though, Hartstein does have a point, and maybe Jules wasn't paying attention or focusing too hard on driving or doing something to cause him to plow that fast into the tractor.

Do we know if Marussia is conducting an investigation? I'm just wondering if there was some sort of failure aboard Bianchi's car to have it go that fast into the corner.

AndreaModa wrote:

dr-baker wrote:Dr Gary Hartstein has given more info on DAI. And he has also written on what he thinks ought to happen. Interesting reading...

That second blog post is spot on. It's hard to take because it essentially implies that Jules was at fault, and unfortunately, in my view, he was. The flag rules have long been abused, yellows aren't treated with respect and the marshals are increasingly vulnerable. If they implement the flag rules properly a horrible incident like this might never happen again.

Yeah, Bianchi was definitely partly at fault. Double-yellows means "you need to be able to stop unexpectedly and immediately". If you're going fast enough to aquaplane, you're going to fast to react and stop if you have to. He should definitely have been going slower. That said, I wouldn't single Bianchi out. Every driver goes too fast under double-yellows. There was mention of implementing the 60 kph rule from Le Mans in that situation, I think that would be a really good idea (if you don't have the pit limiter active, maybe a ten second stop/go penalty at the first offence and a black flag at the second). Would make it very easy to police too.

Having seen it, I think one of two things happened - either his brakes failed, or he was already unconscious when he left the track. There was no attempt to slow the car down, and that's a deep run-off area.

Aquaplaning means that the tyres are no longer in contact with the road. If you hit the brakes, the wheels stop turning and the car continues to "float" on the film of water. If you use the steering wheel, the front wheels turn and nothing happens. The driver can no longer control the car.


That said, of course I hope that Jules pulls through. I fear that it will be a long recovery period though, and that his racing career in Formula 1 is over. Brain injuries are strange things though, and you've just got to hope that he pulls through. He's young, his fitness levels are way above average, and that can't hurt his chances of surviving the injury and making a recovery.

When I said interesting reading, of course I meant it was difficult reading. While at this point, it is hard to blame Jules for what happened, you have to consider it as a possible factor when you consider all the possibilities of what might have gone wrong to produce that accident. I will not blame any one factor until all the facts have been established. I hope that it was not his fault. But then, it is difficult to accept that the two most recent head/brain injuries to have occurred in Formula 1 cars themselves have both happed in Marussias... Coincidence? I hope for that outcome too.

East Londoner wrote:Statement from the Bianchi family states that Jules has a diffuse axonal injury to his brain. Devastating news to hear.

Forza Jules!

This is terrible news. This kind of injury still makes me very scared.

About four years ago a then co-worker of mine had a car accident and had DAI. As colleagues we accompanied his progress as his brother was also a co-worker. This brother would tell us what the doctors said and about others who had a similar injury that he had met. We would also visit him at the hospital regularly. It's a scary injury to have.
This man took a month to wake up, and another one to start talking again (kinda of. He took a few more months to start making sense and to be able to keep a conversation). The doctors said that would take about 2 years to recover as much as he could. They said that he would probably not be able to recover fully. And he was not. He has met some people that have recovery fully, though.
He is lucky that he can still work. He was able to return to the college and perform there. At the same time sequels prevent him from doing some trivial things, like crossing a street. He depends on somebody to take him everywhere he needs to go.
Now Jules is in the worst part: waiting for him to fight back and wake up.

Forza Jules! We believe in you!

dr-baker wrote:But then, it is difficult to accept that the two most recent head/brain injuries to have occurred in Formula 1 cars themselves have both happed in Marussias... Coincidence? I hope for that outcome too.

I knew someone would come to this conclusion but I didn't expect it to be you Baker. Come on, you really think something is at work there? Daft suggestion.

AndreaModa wrote:

dr-baker wrote:But then, it is difficult to accept that the two most recent head/brain injuries to have occurred in Formula 1 cars themselves have both happed in Marussias... Coincidence? I hope for that outcome too.

I knew someone would come to this conclusion but I didn't expect it to be you Baker. Come on, you really think something is at work there? Daft suggestion.

Maybe. But did anyone notice that the first green flag lap was lap 10?

The conspiracy (or whatever it's called. Conspiracy just sounds best in here) has returned...