The Marussia Formula One team are furious about reports that their driver, Jules Bianchi, did not slow down under double yellow flags at Suzuka on 5 October – and was even ordered to go faster.
There have been reports in the German media, since followed up by other international outlets, that Bianchi did not respond to the waving of double yellow flags towards the end of the Japanese Grand Prix.
Some have even suggested that radio transmissions from the team encouraged Bianchi to go faster during the extreme cautionary period in order to keep Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson behind. Bianchi, 25, remains in a critical condition in Japan after his high-speed crash into a recovery vehicle left him with severe head injuries.
The Marussia team have provided the FIA, the sport’s governing body, with telemetry details which confirm that Bianchi did slow down before crashing. But in a media briefing during the Russian Grand Prix at the weekend the race director, Charlie Whiting, suggested that Bianchi, along with other drivers, did not slow down sufficiently when shown the yellow flags, which inform competitors that they should be prepared to stop.
But this was only a preliminary report. The FIA has set up an Accident Panel, headed by Peter Wright, president of the FIA safety commission, to prepare a more thorough investigation and has asked all teams to provide any information that may be helpful. The FIA has also announced it will introduce speed limits for drivers during yellow flag conditions and these will be experimented with in Austin, Texas on 31 October, two days before the US Grand Prix.
Marussia said on Wednesday: “The team is shocked and angered by these allegations. At a time when its driver is critically ill in hospital, and the team has made clear its highest priority is consideration for Jules and his family, it is distressed to have to respond to deeply upsetting rumours and inaccuracies in respect of the circumstances of Jules’s accident. However, given that these allegations are entirely false, the team has no alternative but to address these.
“Jules did slow down under the double-waved yellow flags. That is an irrefutable fact, as proven by the telemetry data, which the team has provided to the FIA. In the FIA press conference which took place in Sochi on Friday 10 October, Charlie Whiting, the FIA’s Race Director, confirmed the team had provided such data, that he himself had examined this data and that Jules did slow.
An audio copy of the full radio transmission between Jules and the team, and also a written transcript thereof, were provided to the FIA. It is quite clear from the transmission and the transcript that at no point during the period leading up to Jules’s accident did the team urge Jules to drive faster or make any comments suggesting he should do so.
“The team sincerely hopes that having clarified these facts it can now avoid any further distractions to its primary focus at this time, which is providing support for Jules and his family.”The FIA have been criticised by drivers past and present since the accident, the worst since Ayrton Senna was killed at Imola in May, 1994.
Sergio Pérez, the Force India driver, said: “It is not acceptable.” And Alain Prost said: “It is cars and tracks [that have been improved] and there was only one thing left: it was this fucking truck on the track.”
The four-times world champion added: “I was furious. I was really shocked by the accident. It is huge bad luck, but you should not judge the cause of the accident, you should judge the consequence. You don’t want to have that.
“If it was my son, I wouldn’t want this type of accident with a truck on an F1 track. That is what I cannot accept.”
