The Frenchman will be laid to rest in his home city of Nice on Tuesday.
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Jules Bianchi’s number 17 will be retired from the Formula One World Championship in his honour.
Formula One’s governing body has introduced a number of safety measures after the crash at Suzuka, including the use of a “virtual safety car” and making the area around the cockpit stronger.
“As Bianchi’s accident proved, the danger is still very much there”.
The Manor F1 team tweeted: “We are devastated to lose Jules after such a hard-fought battle”.
His family praised medical staff in Nice and Mie Prefecture for their care over the last nine months and asked for privacy as they sought to come to terms with the loss. “After what happened in Japan I was so deeply depressed because you have a responsibility for people working for you”.
Such disappointment, however, was short-lived when Marussia took on Bianchi after the sponsorship package agreed with initial signing Luiz Razia failed to materialise. He lost control of his Marussia in wet conditions, went off track, and hit a recovery vehicle that was tending to the stationary Sauber of fellow driver, Adrian Sutil.
It’s never easy to deal with the passing of an individual in any way and we here at egmCarTech send out our deepest heartfelt condolences to the Bianchi family, as well as his friends, teammates, colleagues and fans alike. “Jean Todt, FIA President, expressed his deepest condolences to Jules’ family and recognized the great pain being felt by the Bianchi family and those close to them”.
Jules’s life, with all of 34 grand prix starts and two race points, is a successful career enough without adding to it hypotheticals of what should have been.
Bianchi is the first driver who died from injuries sustained in a Grand Prix Arena since the legendary Ayrton Senna’s death following an accident at San Marino in 1994.
But Jules is the painful reminder that motorsport, as Niki so succinctly summed nine months ago, is always risky.
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The final race before the sport’s summer break will be a sombre affair as news of the death of one of the most popular drivers sinks in.
