BERLIN: Given his talent, many believed that Jules Bianchi (pix) would have joined a big team like Ferrari and be winning Formula One races these days.
“Of course. It would be the logical step for me,” he said six years ago when asked about a possible future at the Scuderia.
However, he never got the opportunity because a few days after the statement, on Oct 5, 2014, he slid into a recovery vehicle at a wet Japanese Grand Prix. He died of head injuries sustained on July 17, 2015, in hospital in his home town of Nice.
“He would have been in a top team and a race winner by now for sure,” Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo tweeted in April. “We never got to see him in a top car so maybe people didn’t appreciate how good he was going to be.”
Ricciardo knew Bianchi well from the karting days as youngsters, and he compared him to new Ferrari star Charles Leclerc, who was godson to the eight years older Bianchi.
“I feel Charles is doing now what Jules would have been doing. It's like Charles is the delayed version of what Jules would have done with the success he’s having,” Ricciardo said.
Like Leclerc, Bianchi was a member of Ferrari's driver academy, and Leclerc recently admitted that Bianchi would have deserved a Ferrari cockpit more than him.
Bianchi was a test driver for Force India in 2012 before getting a place at backbenchers Marussia for the 2013 season and made big headlines by securing the team’s first-ever points at the 2014 Monaco race where he rose from 19th on the grid to ninth.
“It was just wonderful,” he said at the time.
But just a few months later it all ended in tragedy on a wet afternoon in Suzuka which prompted a race start behind the safety car.
In the 41st lap, Adrian Sutil’s Sauber spun off in turn seven which brought out the recovery vehicle. Shortly afterwards, Bianchi’s Marussia went out at the same spot and crashed into the vehicle, with the Frenchman sustaining severe head injuries.
An investigation by the ruling body FIA revealed that he hit the crane with 254g – 254 times the weight of the head with a helmet.
“It's like dropping the car to the ground from a height of 48 meters,” FIA security expert Andy Mellor told German magazine ‘auto motor und sport’ at the time.
The race was red-flagged shortly afterwards and the emerging news of Biachi’s fate sent shock-waves through the paddock.
Even more so because it was not the first time that a member of the Bianchi family had been involved in a major motor sport accident.
Bianchi’s grandfather, Mauro Bianchi, suffered severe burns in an accident at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1968. His brother Lucien – Jules’ great uncle – won that race, but died a year later during test drives in Le Mans.
The accident, the first death in F1 since Ayrton Senna in Imola 1994, prompted the FIA to introduce the Halo cockpit protection. Bianchi’s start No. 17 is also no longer awarded.
“He was a very down-to-earth, warm young person. I think he still had a long way to go,” Sebastian Vettel once recalled.
The German Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and many other drivers attended Bianchi’s funeral in July 2015 in Nice.
“He will remain a champion in our hearts forever,” said then Ferrari test driver Jean-Eric Vergne at the funeral service in Nice’s Sainte-Reparate cathedral.
The priest said that “Jules’ death is profoundly unjust” and ended the ceremony with an emotional plea: “Jules could never climb a Formula One podium, so I ask you to applaud him now.” – dpa
