The helicopter flew. But th hospital they wanted to go to doesn't have facilities to accept helicopters apparently. Some people have said the pressure change at altitude would be too much, but the difference at 500-1000ft is negligible.

Quote from tristancliffe :

The helicopter flew. But the hospital they wanted to go to doesn't have facilities to accept helicopters apparently. Some people have said the pressure change at altitude would be too much, but the difference at 500-1000ft is negligible.

Actually increasing altitude decreases the pressure, so that would actually relieve the pressure on the hematoma, not vice versa, going underwater might be dangerous though...

Realistically though, any pressure change, is risky in these situations, going up might be good, but you do have to come down at some point...

My ears pop when I take the elevator to my 16th floor apartment...

I agree with some sediments regarding Safety Car intervention. I don't like Safety Cars, but I also don't like unnecessary risks to lives.

If car recovery can be done without personnel being in a dangerous position, and avoiding abnormal vehicles on track lets keep the race moving without the safety car. If a tractor or personnel are a must then they need a safety car for just that: safety.

Sadly, I think IndyCar already has the correct formula for safety cars, and that can be too much for my liking, but in the name of safety I think that is what should be done (within reason)

Quote from mike1158 :

Apparently the medical helicopter could not get into the circuit due to weather. It would make sense to cancel any race where full medical resources cannot be available. Hindsight etc.

Ted Kravitz already covered this aspect to an extent during his Qualifying Notebook show. There is a provision in the rules to allow the race to continue even if the helicopter isn't able to fly on account of weather. The alternative is to have an ambulance with a police escort. The hospital where Bianchi was taken was only approximately 14km from the circuit, so the time gained by a helicopter transport would not have been as large as for some trips.

Quote from Lotesdelere :

Quote from Hyperactive :

It is probably time to start thinking about putting skirts on the tractors that need to go on track during the race.

That's more like time to send the safety car out as soon as some rescue staff and/or stuff is operating within the bounds of the track and its run-off areas.

Safety car is not an instant accident preventer. Plenty of cars will drive past that spot during that time it takes the safety car to slow down the field. It was double waved yellows after all. And I think fia already has preplanned when to bring out a safety car if a car goes off in certain place of the track. In some cases even the teams have planned this (renault/singapore). In that place of the track it was apparently decided that it is safe enough to not bring out the safety car because there is a tractor really close there that can retrieve the car in minutes. Sadly in this case there were other contributing factors (fast sweeping corner in the wet with chance of cars aquaplaning off the track). If anything the lesson here is that in the wet some corners become a lot more dangerous than in the dry and the decision to deploy the safety car should reflect that. But more importantly the marshalls need to be trained so that they don't enter the track if it is not safe.

That situation was very typical instance of car being away from the racing line and it looks almost like a perfect example of situation that does not need safety car. I say almost because it was wet and one could assume the car was going off because of aquaplaning (or oil on track). One could think that if one car does that then other cars behind it can do it too. Nobody knew why sutil went off until later when he explained it. But even in such situation the double waved yellows should slow down the cars enough. We still don't know the cause of the incident. Car hitting a tractor is not a cause, it is just consequence and there are trillion different things that contributed and could have contributed to it.

It could be a mechanical failure in bianchi's car, tire failure, bianchi not slowing down enough, aquaplaning, oil on track, wrongly placed green flag which caused drivers to get on power too soon which then turned into aquaplaning and crash. Or it could be simply that the safety crews were too eager to send the tractor out to retrieve the car putting themselves into great danger.

It could have been much more nasty than it was. Someone could say it was just pure luck no marshalls died. I don't think safety car could have prevented that accident.

Good post.

Actually, I like the idea of mandated speed limiters in place of safety car intervention. Make the maximum speed 80km/h with a limiter that is controled by race control. Don't slow the cars down immediately, allow them to coast the speed off, then send out the safety crews and tractors and what ever else is needed. It will hardly mess with the flow of the race in this way.

I believe that if the safety car had been out, the chance of this accident happening would have reduced to the point where driver error would not have been a factor. There is a very different mentality behind any yellow zone as compared to a safety car period. Time cannot be lost from slowing down during a safety car period, but can be in a double/yellow zone. Positions cannot be lost, there is no racing going on during safety car periods where as the opposite is true in a double/yellow zone without a safety car. Then there's also the subjective opinion on the severity of an accident, if it's so far away or out of the racing line that it "seems minor", I can imagine that different drivers will react differently.

Objectively, the best solution would be to set a specific course of action and prevent the drivers' personal judgements from coming into play at all. How that can be achieved in a sensible, safe way I'm not sure. Any sudden and forced effect on the car is a no-no. I believe there was an incident during LM24h due to drivers pushing 100% up to a yellow zone and then braking hard in the middle of a straight, for example (Note: hearsay, I don't recall it myself).

A team was banned from this year's ADAC N24h due to one of their drivers not reacting properly to yellows, and being about a half a metre away from collecting a recovery vehicle and killing a marshal. Sometimes it doesn't matter what's displayed as long as there's something to lose by not pushing.

Hopefully this doesn't come off as ghoulish or anything, but who do we figure will start in Sochi for Marussia? Rossi or Stevens?

Quote from tristancliffe :

The helicopter flew. But th hospital they wanted to go to doesn't have facilities to accept helicopters apparently. Some people have said the pressure change at altitude would be too much, but the difference at 500-1000ft is negligible.

There's an account on twitter called formerf1_doc or something like that, he points out that the pressure of the altitude would have been important since the head injury was bad.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Hopefully this doesn't come off as ghoulish or anything, but who do we figure will start in Sochi for Marussia? Rossi or Stevens?

Nah, marussia will sell the seat to the highest bidder. The way the 3rd driver business seems to work in F1 is that the 3rd drivers pay just to be called "3rd drivers" or "test drivers". =To have a driving job in F1 in their resumes. The 3rd drivers only get to drive the cars though when the actual drivers are lagging behind on their payments and need some pressuring... When the actual drivers are not able to drive it is basically a lotterery who gets the drive...

E: actually I think it could be one of the ferrari prospects that get to drive the marussia. If I have not misundertood bianchi's seat is paid by ferrari and as such it is ferrari's seat. My "money" is on Raffaele Marciello.

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

I believe that if the safety car had been out, the chance of this accident happening would have reduced to the point where driver error would not have been a factor. There is a very different mentality behind any yellow zone as compared to a safety car period. Time cannot be lost from slowing down during a safety car period. Positions cannot be lost, there is no racing going on during safety car periods.

But when pitting in SC periods, there is opportunity t ogain or lose positions because drivers don't drive the same speed when catching SC.

Quote from Jesse Kyytinen :

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

I believe that if the safety car had been out, the chance of this accident happening would have reduced to the point where driver error would not have been a factor. There is a very different mentality behind any yellow zone as compared to a safety car period. Time cannot be lost from slowing down during a safety car period. Positions cannot be lost, there is no racing going on during safety car periods.

But when pitting in SC periods, there is opportunity t ogain or lose positions because drivers don't drive the same speed when catching SC.

Although the current regulations in F1 are a bit complicated for safety car periods, the pace of the cars is restricted to try and stop people from gaining an advantage by racing back round under SC conditions. Simply put, the drivers are given a time target which they cannot be under for getting to certain control points:

Quote from F1 2014 Sporting Regulations :

40.7 All competing cars must reduce speed and form up in line behind the safety car no more than ten car lengths apart. In order to ensure that drivers reduce speed sufficiently, from the time at which the "SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED" message is shown on the timing monitors until the time that each car crosses the first safety car line for the second time, drivers must stay above the minimum time set by the FIA ECU.

Source

If a driver races around (e.g. to get back to the pits and make a stop) and arrives at the first safety car line before the minimum time mentioned above, they'll receive a penalty.

There is no passing without race control's permission during a safety car period. Green is not shown until the pass throughs have caught up at the back. Is there not a rule that stipulates that cars cannot be "too far" (i.e. maintain a gap) away from each other during safety car periods? Given these conditions, the only way to lose time during a safety car is to pit and lose a position.

Anyway I don't recall a time when someone fighting for points was on the opposite side of the track when the green had dropped.

It's beside the point anyway, I was obviously saying that once the safety car is on the track, there is no point in driving flat out to gain time which is why it's safer than waved double yellows, even if waved double yellows required coming to a full stop at the first relevant marshal post.

Marussia´s today statement.

"MEDIA INFORMATION │ 7 October 2014
A Statement from the family of Jules Bianchi

Yokkaichi, Japan
7 October 2014, 23.00hrs local/15.00hrs BST

The following statement is provided by the family of Jules Bianchi, in conjunction with the Mie General Medical Center, and is distributed on their behalf by the Marussia F1 Team.

“This is a very difficult time for our family, but the messages of support and affection for Jules from all over the world have been a source of great comfort to us. We would like to express our sincere appreciation.

Jules remains in the Intensive Care Unit of the Mie General Medical Center in Yokkaichi. He has suffered a diffuse axonal injury and is in a critical but stable condition. The medical professionals at the hospital are providing the very best treatment and care and we are grateful for everything they have done for Jules since his accident.

We are also grateful for the presence of Professor Gerard Saillant, President of the FIA Medical Commission, and Professor Alessandro Frati, Neurosurgeon of the University of Rome La Sapienza, who has travelled to Japan at the request of Scuderia Ferrari. They arrived at the hospital today and met with the medical personnel responsible for Jules’ treatment, in order to be fully informed of his clinical status so that they are able to advise the family. Professors Saillant and Frati acknowledge the excellent care being provided by the Mie General Medical Center and would like to thank their Japanese colleagues.

The hospital will continue to monitor and treat Jules and further medical updates will be provided when appropriate.”"




I googled Diffuse Axonal Injury and found this:
About 90% of survivors with severe diffuse axonal injury remain unconscious. The 10% that regain consciousness are often severely impaired.

http://www.brainandspinalcord.org/traumatic-brain-injury-types/diffuse-axonal-injury/index.html

Quote from chanoman315 :

Marussia´s today statement.

"MEDIA INFORMATION │ 7 October 2014
A Statement from the family of Jules Bianchi

Yokkaichi, Japan
7 October 2014, 23.00hrs local/15.00hrs BST

The following statement is provided by the family of Jules Bianchi, in conjunction with the Mie General Medical Center, and is distributed on their behalf by the Marussia F1 Team.

“This is a very difficult time for our family, but the messages of support and affection for Jules from all over the world have been a source of great comfort to us. We would like to express our sincere appreciation.

Jules remains in the Intensive Care Unit of the Mie General Medical Center in Yokkaichi. He has suffered a diffuse axonal injury and is in a critical but stable condition. The medical professionals at the hospital are providing the very best treatment and care and we are grateful for everything they have done for Jules since his accident.

We are also grateful for the presence of Professor Gerard Saillant, President of the FIA Medical Commission, and Professor Alessandro Frati, Neurosurgeon of the University of Rome La Sapienza, who has travelled to Japan at the request of Scuderia Ferrari. They arrived at the hospital today and met with the medical personnel responsible for Jules’ treatment, in order to be fully informed of his clinical status so that they are able to advise the family. Professors Saillant and Frati acknowledge the excellent care being provided by the Mie General Medical Center and would like to thank their Japanese colleagues.

The hospital will continue to monitor and treat Jules and further medical updates will be provided when appropriate.”"




I googled Diffuse Axonal Injury and found this:
About 90% of survivors with severe diffuse axonal injury remain unconscious. The 10% that regain consciousness are often severely impaired.

http://www.brainandspinalcord.org/traumatic-brain-injury-types/diffuse-axonal-injury/index.html

I was just going to post those same two quotes. Very sad

E: Bolded the most important.

Gary Hartstein about Diffuse Axonal Injury: http://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/diffuse-axonal-injury/

From what I've gathered the prognosis depends a lot on how severe the damage is and nobody knows that well enough at this point. Let's hope for the best. Forza Jules!

Found this:

Quote from Minidrivers on FB :

I recommend you not to look on Google about the diffuse axonal injury. On Google you can die even for a flu and we must think that every person is completely different

So we should not believe an organization that devotes its time to brain and spinal cords injuries? We're not talking about answers or stuff we found on yahoo answers or wikipedia.

Quote from chanoman315 :

So we should not believe an organization that devotes its time to brain and spinal cords injuries? We're not talking about answers or stuff we found on yahoo answers or wikipedia.

It's not about that. But we absolutely should not form any conclusions based on information of various quality we find somewhere on the Internet. There is a reason why it takes several years of professional training to become a doctor.

Note that the quoted text mentions only "severe" DAI but we have no idea what exactly does "severe" mean - at least I certainly don't. I'd imagine that the prognosis depends on lots of factors that cannot be explained to a layman in one web article.

The point being that a generalised summary of this type of injury may or may not apply to a certain degree in this specific case. It might be that Bianchi's injury is a very minor type of DAI, but equally it might be as severe as they come. We don't know yet, so we can even begin to guess if he's in the 10% of recoverees or the 90% that never wake up, or another range of possibilities. We know virtually nothing.

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

It's beside the point anyway, I was obviously saying that once the safety car is on the track, there is no point in driving flat out to gain time which is why it's safer than waved double yellows, even if waved double yellows required coming to a full stop at the first relevant marshal post.

But it is possible jules was going really really slow (for an f1 car) and still aquaplaned off the track.

213 km/h in dim lighting conditions, in heavy(ish(?)) rain in a double yellow zone. Is that really, really slow? I think that if he'd have been going really, really slowly he wouldn't have reached the barriers had he aquaplaned into a spin. Of course there is no way to prove it so it's a moot point.

http://formerf1doc.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/2271/

I don't think cars aquaplane at safety car/pitlane speeds. Maybe if the water was 25mm deep, but I'd be surprised if the deepest puddle on an F1 track was more than 5mm.

He wen't off at 213kph and he was reporting issues with the rear tyres in lap 36, you can see that in the Marussia's tweet feed. Maybe he just lost control, probably we'll never know :/