FIA file report on Bianchi crash

Following Jules Bianchi’s horrific crash in Japan the FIA instructed a 10-man Accident Panel to review the incident.

The 10-man panel included former Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn, former Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali and former Formula One World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi.

The Panel has issued a 396-page report on the incident and has made a variety of recommendations which are relevant improvements to all motor sport formulas.

This report has been presented to the FIA World Motor Sport Council, which accepted the findings and has given a mandate to implement the recommendations and conclusions from the report.

25-year-old Jules Bianchi crashed during the Japanese Grand Prix on a wet Suzuka circuit.

Sauber’s Adrian Sutil had crashed on the very same turn a lap earlier and crashed into the tyre barrier, however for Bianchi, his Marussia crashed into the recovery vehicle which was retrieving Sutil’s Sauber.

The report has stated that Bianchi ‘did not slow sufficiently’ before his accident.

Bianchi hit the recovery vehicle at a speed of 78mph.

The FIA have also added that a braking system on Bianchi’s Marussia prevented a failsafe from working. This failsafe should have cut the car’s engine.

According to the report as quoted by the BBC: ‘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 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 (BBW) 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.

‘However, it may be that Bianchi was distracted by what was happening and the fact that his front wheels had locked, and been unable to steer the car such that it missed the crane.’

Immediately following the incident the safety car and doctors car was then deployed, followed by an ambulance which took Bianchi to Mie General Medical Center in Yokkaich.

The FIA confirmed that Bianchi left the circuit unconscious after suffering a diffuse axonal brain injury and was in a critical but stable condition.

He remained in a coma for around six weeks, but last month Bianchi’s family announced that he was no longer in an artificial coma and is now breathing unaided.

He does however remain unconscious and critical at the Le Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice in France.