In 2006, and with his talent obvious, Bianchi was signed up by Nicolas Todt, son of FIA president Jean. Race In Peace Jules!
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“We’ve done an bad lot of work to make sure that if a auto does go off and hits something, they hit the tire barriers or whatever, then its all OK”, he added.
It also said that Bianchi “did not slow sufficiently to avoid losing control”.
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”, he told business journalist Christian Sylt and Aaron Rook.
For a sport in which death and glory were once uneasy bedfellows, 21 years may appear an inordinate amount of time, but in truth, it is a death that has come far too soon for F1. “The world has lost a true racer and we have all lost a friend”.
Fellow F1 drivers offered tributes to the late Frenchman, who was considered as a real fighter.
Bianchi debuted in F1 for the Marussia outfit in 2013.
His funeral will take place in the Sainte Réparate Cathedral and is expected to be attended only by close friends and family. In 1969, Bianchi’s great-uncle, Lucien Bianchi, died in an accident during testing at the Le Mans race track when he crashed his Alfa Romeo into a post, a year after winning the prestigious endurance race.
Jules Bianchi ploughed into the tractor, which had been sent to recover Sutil’s vehicle, at 80mph and suffered a diffuse axonal injury. Bianchi and Chilton were together in karting competition from age 10. The former Marussia driver had been a member of Ferrari’s driver academy since 2009 and was already being touted as a replacement after he impressed in a mid-season test previous year.
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He said in an interview to Sky Italia yesterday that the team had decided to replace Kimi Raikkonen with Bianchi once the Finn’s contract was up. He failed to score any points in his début season and finished 19th overall.
