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Russian GP sans Jules #17's Marussia

October 10, 2014

Russian-owned Formula One team Marussia will compete with only one car, Max Chilton's, at the inaugural F1 race at the Sochi Autodrom. Marussia's lead driver Jules Bianchi was severely injured at the Japanese Grand Prix.

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Formel 1-Rennstrecke in Sotschi Jules Bianchi Garage
Image: picture alliance/HOCH ZWEI

Marussia said ahead of free practice on Friday that it would field just one car for the inaugural Russian Grand Prix, out of respect for Jules Bianchi, who is in a critical but stable condition in hospital in Yokkaichi, Japan.

Bianchi crashed into the back of a recovery tractor, mobilized to try to remove another F1 car that had gone off at the exact same spot moments earlier, late in the rain-soaked Japanese Grand Prix last weekend. The 25-year-old Frenchman suffered a traumatic brain injury.

"The Team have written to the stewards of the meeting to inform them that they have withdrawn their second car," the Russian-owned, Oxfordshire-based Marussia team said in a statement. "The Team feels strongly that fielding a single car … is the appropriate course of action under the difficult circumstances of the weekend."

jules bianchi, formel-1, motorsport, frankreich, grand prix, unfall
Drivers wore well-wishes for their stricken colleague Bianchi, a rising F1 starImage: picture-alliance/dpa

Tous avec Jules #17

Marussia, one of the most economically disadvantaged teams on the grid, had rushed to prepare a second car for the event - but opted on Friday not to run it, despite the vehicle clearing pre-event scrutineering.

"In support of Jules and his family, the team and their cars will carry the familiar #JB17 graphic, to ensure that although Jules is not with them in Sochi this weekend, he is, nonetheless, racing on with the Marussia F1 Team," the statement said. Bianchi races with the number 17 on his car.

All the other drivers took to the new track for the first free practice session on Friday morning with stickers on their helmet declaring "Tous Avec Jules #17" ("Everybody With Jules #17"), starting with Bianchi's teammate Max Chilton.

Formel 1-Rennstrecke in Sotschi Autodrom
F1, always seeking wealthy governments in need of the spotlight, is in Russia for the first timeImage: picture-alliance/AP Photo/L. Bruno

"I don't know how to put into words how truly devastated I am by what has happened to Jules," Chilton said in the statement.

Alonso contemplates closed cockpits

Bianchi's injury was the most serious to befall a Formula 1 driver during a race weekend since Felipe Massa at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, who was hit on the helmet at speed by an errant spring that had come loose from a competitor's car. Massa suffered severe head injuries and remained in a coma for several days, but ultimately made a full recovery. The Brazilian veteran now drives for the Williams team.

Massa's former teammate Fernando Alonso weighed in to the safety discussion spurred on by Bianchi's accident, asking at Sochi whether F1 should reconsider closed cockpits - a bid to better protect driver's heads.

"All the biggest accidents in motorsport in the last couple of years have been head injuries so it's probably one of the parts where we are not on the top of the safety," Alonso said, citing an accident of his own where he walked away unscathed. Romain Grosjean collided with several cars going into the first corner at the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix, with his vehicle sliding over the top of Alonso's, narrowly missing the Spaniard's head on the way past.

"Even in my case, in 2012 at Spa, I probably could have died there in corner one if it had been 10 centimeters closer to my head," Alonso said. "If the technology is there available and there is the possibility I would not exclude [closed cockpits] for sure."

Formel 1 - GP Belgien
Alonso (right in picture in red Ferrari) came away from this incident unscathed, but it was a close thingImage: picture alliance / dpa

Massa voiced support for the suggestion, noting that a cockpit might have spared him from any injuries in his 2009 incident.

Marussia also lost former development driver Maria de Villota in 2013, a year after she crashed into a team truck during a test session. She lost an eye and suffered head injuries in the 2012 crash, dying just over a year later of cardiac arrest, believed to be linked to her past injuries. Similary, young Formula 2 driver Henry Surtees was killed in 2009 when a loose wheel from a competitor's car hit his head.

However, some motorsports experts question whether introducing closed cockpits over drivers' heads would necessarily improve safety. One commonly raised concern is how to extricate a driver swiftly from a car that has rolled upside-down or onto its side. Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button were both reticent on the idea, citing the traditional appearance of open-wheel F1 race cars, Button described the idea as "a very big change for the sport to make."

msh/kms (AP, dpa, Reuters)