MOTORSPORT: Bianchi's passing mourned

Bernie Ecclestone says incidents like that which led to the death of Jules Bianchi “must never happen again”. The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association says there is a responsibility “to never relent in improving safety”. And Max Mosley, the former Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president and a great crusader for safety, says that – despite all efforts there will always be danger in Formula 1...

Daniel Ricciardo tweeted on hearing the news of Bianchi’s death at the weekend, after nine months in a coma: “I’ll never forget you and the good times we had. Going to miss you bro.”

Ricciardo’s message was accompanied by a big red heart symbol and two pictures of the pair together in happy times.

Bianchi, 25, was the first Formula 1 driver to die from injuries suffered in a GP in more than 21 years – since Brazilian great Ayrton Senna and Austrian Roland Ratzberger were killed on the same weekend at Imola in Italy in May 1994.

Bianchi’s Marussia car crashed in wet and gloomy conditions towards the end of last year’s Japanese GP at Suzuka.

He was on life support in hospital in Japan for weeks before being flown home to Nice in France, where he remained in a coma until his death early on Saturday.

An investigation by an FIA panel found that Bianchi “did not slow sufficiently to avoid losing control” as he approached the uphill Dunlop corner with double yellow caution flags being waved by marshals.

It also found that the car’s torque converter controlling the rear brake-by-wire system overrode a fail-safe mechanism that should have cut the engine.

The Marussia was accelerating and braking at the same time.

It crashed at high speed into a mobile crane that was recovering the Sauber of German driver Adrian Sutil which had gone off at the same corner a lap earlier.

Ecclestone, F1’s long-time supremo, is right in leading the campaign to ensure such circumstances never occur again.

Already there have been some changes – the introduction of a ‘virtual safety car’ system, under which stewards can neutralise a race and force all cars to proceed slowly to the pits rather than continue lapping. Start times have been revised to ensure daytime races end in daylight. Melbourne’s season-opening GP began earlier in March for that reason.

But what officialdom is still avoiding in the wake of Bianchi’s death is that it was the presence of the recovery crane inside the safety barriers that largely contributed to it. The Marussia was going to crash, but it would have been better for it to have hit the safety barrier or Sutil’s car rather than the heavy crane.

The car’s roll hoop, designed to protect the driver’s head, was destroyed in hitting the crane.

The incident again is being described as “freakish”.

To an extent that is true – it was freakish even that cars would leave the track at the same spot, especially with the double yellow flags waving a lap after Sutil’s off – but the problem was what the Marussia hit.

Bianchi drove 34 GPs with the backmarker team in which he had been placed by Ferrari, Marussia’s engine supplier.

The highlight of his career was ninth place in last year’s Monaco GP. The two world championship points from that result earned Marussia entitlement to millions of dollars of F1’s commercial pie that enabled it to be pulled through a financial crisis and remain on the grid as Manor Marussia this year.

As a member of Ferrari’s elite academy of young drivers, and managed by Nicholas Todt -- son of Mosley’s successor as FIA president, Jean Todt (who ran the Ferrari F1 team in Michael Schumacher’s heyday) -- Bianchi may well have taken Kimi Raikkonen’s seat with the Italian team next season. Valtteri Bottas now appears destined to grab the spot.

Bianchi’s funeral will be in Nice tomorrow (Tuesday, July 21), giving the F1 community the opportunity to attend before heading to this weekend’s Hungarian GP.

Reeves on top in USA
Australia’s top young rally driver, Brendan Reeves, has given the new M-Sport Ford Fiesta R2 a victorious American debut.

Reeves (26) and new fellow Australian co-driver, Anthony McLoughlin, won the two-wheel-drive class of the 25th New England Forest Rally in the country’s north-east by more than 10 minutes in the Fiesta with a 1000cc, three-cylinder EcoBoost turbocharged engine.

They also were sixth outright in the event which was the sixth round of the Rally American National Championship. Reeves Fiesta was headed only by much more powerful open and super production class cars.

The outright winner was David Higgins in a Subaru STI, ahead of Ken Block in the new 2-litre Ford Fiesta R5 and Travis Pastrana in another Subaru.

Block’s Hoonigan Racing worked with British-based M-Sport and America’s Team O’Neil in fielding the R2 for Reeves and McLoughlin.

Reeves and his sister and then-co-driver Rhiannon Gelsomino won the 2WD title in Rally America with Team O’Neil two years ago, winning the class at the five rounds they contested in including the New England Forest Rally at Sunday River in Maine.

This time dust was an issue for many competitors on the first day of the two-day event, while overnight rain made the course slippery on the final day.

Seventh outright overnight, Reeves said the R2 “had a great [final] day with a clean run”.

“The three repeat stages were so much fun after the rain,” Reeves said.

Max Vatanen, son of Finland’s 1981 world rally champion Ari Vatanen, drove the R2 to a class win in its WRC debut in the recent Rally Poland.

The American entry was a one-off – for now at least – with the car returning to Europe.

That was the best result for Americans in their premier open-wheeler series, usually dominated by foreign drivers, since the 2006 Indianapolis 500.

Ryan Hunter-Reay became the ninth victor in 13 rounds this season. It was his first win in 12 months gave Andretti Autosport a sixth straight victory in Iowa – a feat team principal Michael Andretti struggled to explain.

Hunter-Reay, with a Honda engine, beat Chevrolet-powered Josef Newgarden by half a second for the second year at this venue.

The 20-year-old Sage Karam was a controversial third in a Chevrolet-powered Ganassi team entry, ahead of newly-consistent Graham Rahal, who is now second in the series in his Honda-engined car.

Colombian Carlos Munoz was fifth, ahead of two more Americans – Ed Carpenter and Marco Andretti.

Briscoe was eighth in his Honda-powered Schmidt Peterson Motorsports entry and reigning series champion Power finished 10th in his Team Penske Chevrolet after leading two of the 300 laps.

Previous-round winner, Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais, was sandwiched between the Aussies at the chequered flag.

Power remains fifth in the championship, 55 points behind leader and Penske teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, with three rounds remaining.

Colombian Montoya was out of the Iowa race after hitting the safety wall in turn two, saying “something broke” in the front suspension.

He leads Rahal by 42 points with New Zealander Scott Dixon, who was classified only 18th after retiring with a mechanical issue in Iowa, has dropped to third and 54 points behind Montoya.

Brazilian Helio Castroneves, another of the four Penske drivers, finished one place behind Power but remains a point ahead of him.

Rookie Karam came under fire from Carpenter and Rahal for his aggressive driving, but he retorted that “this is hard racing … these aren’t go-karts”.

Meanwhile, Toyota driver Kyle Busch’s NASCAR victory at New Hampshire was his third in the past four rounds of the Sprint Cup. However, after missing 11 races this season through injury, Busch is still 58 points off the 30th place in that series he needs to reach to qualifying for the The Chase – the competition over the final rounds to decide the title.

Reigning champion Kevin Harvick, driving for Tony Stewart’s Chevrolet team, has a huge lead – 69 points – over one of Roger Penske’s Ford drivers, Joey Logano.

Penske’s other driver, Brad Keselowski, the 2012 Sprint Cup champion, is sixth – with Chevrolet trio Dale Earnhardt Junior, Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Junior – between him and Logano.

Keselowski and Logano finished second and fourth at New Hampshire, with Harvick between them.