Ten years ago on this very day, F1 lost Jules Bianchi. The first driver death after an on-track accident in two decades. And even now, his legacy is still felt in the world of Formula 1.
In the 70's and 80's, driver deaths were all too horrifically common. Legends of the sport like Jochen Rindt, Gilles Villeneuve and Elio de Angelis lost their lives on the track, and then of course there was the horrific weekend at Imola in 1994, where Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna both passed away in accidents.
But by the time young Jules Bianchi began making waves in the racing scene, those events had become distant memories of the past. Remnants of a time that lived in infamy. The massively increased safety regulations and the work of heroes like doctor Sid Watkins had made it incredibly unlikely that such accidents could still happen. And that was great news for Bianchi, because he was immediately putting his name out there.
Growing up on the karting circuit owned by his father, he had already started racing anything with four wheels from when he was just 3 years old. When he made the stup up to Formula Renault 2.0 in 2007 (essentially what we'd now call French F4), he was already being managed by Nicholas Todt, the son of legendary Ferrari team principal and FIA president Jean Todt. It helped Bianchi immensely: he immediately won the title in his rookie year. That was followed by a third place in F3 the next year and in 2009 he won the title in F3 with a ridiculously dominant display. In the following two years he'd finish third in F2, and by then it was clear that he was destined for Formula 1.
A rising star
But he didn't just go to Formula 1. Oh no. You see, back in 2009, Bianchi had made such a massive impression on the racing scene with his victory in F3, that the big boys were now paying attention. Ferrari had him test against a few other people whose names are not recognized nowadays, and came to the conclusion that he was the next big thing. They were so impressed by Bianchi in fact, that they set up a completely new organization: the Ferrari Driver Academy. Bianchi became the first - and certainly not the last - recruit for the programme. And though he would spend the next few years as reserve and free practice driver for Ferrari and its customer teams, he was now firmly on the F1 radar.
By 2013, the Marussia F1 team was... well, it was there. It had not yet scored a single point in its three years on the grid and their only reason for existing was that they were funded by the Russians back when that was only slightly problematic. But they had a spare seat and drove with Ferrari engines, so that was that. Bianchi was now officially a Formula 1 driver.
Bianchi in the racesuit of Ferrari as their reserve driver.
He would have to pause his dreams of becoming champion for a little bit, because realistically, he only had two goals at Marussia: defeat his teammate, and beat the Caterhams whatever it takes. Caterham and Marussia were in a heated battle for the distinct honor of worst team on the grid, and the Russian money really did not want that title. From the very start however, Bianchi proved that he was more than up to the task. In his first race, he qualified almost a second ahead of his teammate and in the race, he not only finished ahead of his teammate and the Caterhams, but also made moves on drivers like Pastor Maldonado and Daniel Ricciardo. This guy was good. Really, really good.
Thanks to Bianchi's magic, Marussia finished ahead of Caterham in the standings that year. Sure, they both still had zero points, but that didn't matter. And in 2014, Bianchi would up the ante once more in Monaco. On a track where it's utterly impossible to overtake, he... overtook. He started from last on the grid and ended the race in P9. In a freaking Marussia. In Monaco! He made himself immortal that day to all those watching from the grandstands, among them his godson Charles Leclerc.
Dark omens
When looking back on Bianchi's career, there is almost a throughline of dark, horrifying omens that surrounded him, knowing what ultimately happened to him. Back in his first season in F2, he got into a crash with Ho-Pin Tun, who hit him on the head, which left Bianchi with a fractured verterbrae. In the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix, track marshal Mark Robinson got run over by a recovery vehicle and later passed away. That same year, Marussia test driver Maria de Villota died from injuries sustained a year earlier in a test for the team. They were all terrible reminders of how brutal and dangerous this sport can be.
But what was perhaps - with the knowledge of hindsight - most ominous, was the usage of the safety car during the 2014 season. Or rather: the lack thereof. In both Monaco and Germany, there were marshals on track while only yellow flags were being waved. Unimaginable nowadays, and it should have been unimaginable back then as well. Especially when you remember that just a year prior, one of those marshals lost his life because of this.
The type of recovery vehicle that Bianchi crashed into.
It showed that the FIA was playing with fire in their unwillingness to send the safety car out. And later that year, Bianchi became the last victim of that. In Japan, the rain was pouring down hard. Adrian Sutil spun off the track and into the wall. His car had to be recovered by a recovery vehicle, but even though that behemoth of a machine was just outside the track, there was no safety car. A lap later, Bianchi came around and spun off at the exact same spot.
I'll spare you the details here, but the crash between Bianchi's car and the recovery vehicle was horrific. He was unable to respond. The collision had given him severe brain damage and he was unable to breathe on his own. Japan's best doctors did what they could, and later on the French tried their hand as well. But it was no use.
Jules Bianchi died on the 17th of July 2015, aged 25.
His legacy lives on
It's hard to take anything positive away from a tragic death like this. But as horrible as the loss of Bianchi was, he still continues to positively affect Formula 1. Not just through his godson Leclerc, who has by all accounts done Bianchi proud every time he steps into the Ferrari. But also through the safety measures made after Bianchi's death.
The first is the introduction of the Virtual Safety Car. Clearly it's not an end-all to all the problems with on track safety of course, but it has been a great introduction, even if the FIA is sometimes a little slow with calling upon it.
Much more significantly is the implementation of the halo. It had been in development before Bianchi's death and took a long time still to be ready for implementation, but once it was there, it has been a literal lifesaver. It cannot be overstated just how crucial this device has been. And one of the first people to experience that has been Leclerc himself. In the Belgian GP in 2018, his halo was struck by the airborne car of Fernando Alonso. Another driver to famously experience the effects of the halo was Romain Grosjean. Himself a palbearer at Bianchi's funeral, Grosjean knew the damage a crash can do. And when he had his infamous crash in Bahrain in 2020, it was the halo that protected his head from being struck by the barrier.
Jules himself has been gone for a decade now. But the impact he has had, will live on forever in F1.
