Formula One Mourns A Talent Taken Away Too Young

The tragic death of Jules Binachi has once again highlighted the inherent danger of Formula One extends slightly further than losing your ride at Ferrari next season

The Formula One circus will move onto Hungary this weekend where the usual suspects will gain their usual places on the grid, the race will proceed as it usually does and the usual faces will turn up on the podium at the end, to spray the usual amount of champagne over each other and anyone else who happens to be nearby. It will be, pretty much, all in all, business as usual at the Hungaroring, but this has been anything but a usual week for the pinnacle of motorsport.

Jules Binachi Laid To Rest

• Driver died in a coma
• Head injuries in Japan 2014
• Grand Prix now safer than ever

Typically fans who like to bet on sports in Finland would be wondering what gossip will emerge from the paddock on a replacement for their fellow countryman Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari, which team will make a fuss about being unable to win races, or who will complain loudest about the surface at the Hungarian circuit (a common complaint down the years) but this week there has been a sombre facet to the sport on display as they laid to rest one of their own.

The funeral of Jules Bianchi was held on Tuesday in the French city of Nice. The Marussia (as was) driver slid off an extremely greasy and wet track in Suzuka last year and sustained serious head injuries when his car collided with an on-stand-by recovery vehicle. Losing consciousness at the scene the 25 year old Frenchman slipped into a coma from which he did not awake. He died on Friday last week leaving his family devastated and the sport he loved doing some serious navel gazing.

As friends, family, fellow drivers and fans attended a service in the city’s cathedral, Sebastian Vettel and Romain Grosjean assisting to carry the coffin after the service, at which the mournful Hotel California by The Eagles had played, Father Sylvain Brison recounted Bianchi as a “champion blessed with a rare talent” and indeed the F1 world is poorer by a lot of talent, and a driver of singular potential that was cruelly cut short by this tragic accident.

Taken Away Far Too Young

Tributes to the late driver were much in evidence with his team, now called Manor, saying he’d “left an indelible mark on all our lives”, and current World Champion Lewis Hamilton calling it a “sad, sad day”. Eddie Jordan highlighted the potential Binachi had possessed saying; “Very seldom do we find a real jewel, like Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Jules had the potential to be in that league.” It was a sentiment echoed by many.

“It’s not just about the loss of a friend and a colleague,” said former F1 driver Allan McNish, “it’s about the loss of someone with such a huge talent. He was taken away far too young.” Bianchi is the first race-based death in F1 since Ayrton Senna in Imola, although Maria De Villota died in 2013 whilst testing an F1 car, and if there’s one thing it to be learned from this tragedy it is that motorsport will always be dangerous, there will always be a risk to life and limb.

If you’re Finnish gambling laws of gossip-to-fact ratios hold out and you’ll get to see Valtteri Bottas in a Ferrari next season to replace the now jaundiced figure of Kimi Raikkonen, it will be under very different conditions of those at the Japanese Grand Prix in 2014. The addition of the virtual safety car has done much to improve safety during yellow-flag situations, almost to the point where it is as safe as can possibly be managed with the given technology in the current paradigm.

Many, of course, have pointed out that F1 will never be entirely safe, that there is an inherent danger in the sport, Max Mosley, former president of the FIA, said “It’s no good pretending F1 is safe because it isn’t.” but that didn’t stop Bernie Ecclestone saying “We must never let this happen again.” and the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association saying it saw itself as responsible “to never relent in improving safety” but cynical old me has to ask……..is that really a good idea?

Safety First, Spectacle Second?

The deaths of Senna, of Villota, of Binachi, are all massive tragedies, for the sport, for their colleagues and not least of all for their loved ones, however these are wholly infrequent occurrences in a sport where drivers hit and stay on right the limit, the ragged edge of possible performance, for lap after lap, week in, week out. The fact that deaths are so rare, however, means that there is a tendency for the shock and press clamor to spark over reaction from the powers that be.

The safety regulations and features insisted upon by Max Mosley after the death of Senna have certainly made driving an F1 car much safer, but it could be argued they’ve done much to produce the malaise from which the sport suffers. With audience figures continuing to fall, a distinct regularity of result predictability and costs spiraling alarmingly there’s a distinct conflict between safety and spectacle. The racing no longer as much about drivers, as about the engineering of their cars.

No one will be gambling news of more safety will attract more viewers, more sponsors, more money, and quite a few will quietly be saying quite the reverse, but the wild days of motor racing are gone, and the tragic deaths of those unfortunate few mean the rest of us must acquiesce to the concerns of those who put their name to our entertainment, their concern for both the safety of drivers and the commercial success of the sport as a whole.

As you might imagine there will be tributes paid to Jules Bianchi at the Hungaroring on Sunday, and then it’ll be back to business as usual. A quick look at the odds on ComeOn! Sportsbook make for great reading if you like to boost your bankroll, Hamilton’s odd’s might be short, but they’re all but a sure thing these days. He’s 1.43 to win with Rosberg back on 2.80 and Vettel a distant 12.00. It might be dull racing, but it’s almost a money spinner for the savvy gambler.