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sorry...but why?

It's a tribute, that's why.

I hope this is the only reason to retire numbers and not for just because someone important had that number.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

It's standard practice in football for years as well. Hardly something with far-reaching consequences.

He probably should've said moment of silence instead of minute if they were going to do that to him. Chilton was very complimentary of Bianchi whenever I spoke with him this past weekend.

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Luca di Montezemolo says that Ferrari had already decided that Bianchi was going to replace Kimi when Kimi left the team:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/120034

if Enzo was still alive he would pledge to retire the number 27

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IIRC, Enzo hated that his cars bore such high numbers. Only #1 would do.

but aye, I approve of this. F1 wants a number cult. Such a sad, sad way to get it started though. I'm really missing Bianchi...

I know its a tribute but Driver numbers are still very new and frankly I'm used to it being done with sportsman in other sports that ment a lot to a certain team or the sport in general.

Bianchi had a great future ahead of him but we'll never know if he would have fulfilled it anyways.
If it was Max Chilton instead I'm sure more people would have asked the same question.

And lastly, 17 wasn't even his first choice.

Having thought about it some more, I find it all pretty despicable.

True probably that Jules hardly lifted* when he aquaplaned straight into his tragic fate.
However, it was the FIA that didn't act upon the situation at hand, in where a car was aquaplaning off the lap before, therefore having a high probability of a similar situation at the exact same spot (eg. T1 at Nürburgring 2007). I am sure there are onboards available, was it Magnussen (?), where he nearly lost it at the exact same spot.

Subsequently having marshals as well as a driver (Sutil) and a recovery vehicle inside the track perimeter and not acting upon that (throwing a safety car) is for me bordering on the level of negligence. True, we had a race on our hands and the time, and I'm pretty sure we would all have been bashing the decision to see it neutralised (similar to having the safety car driving around on a track that is by no means wet anymore). But Charlie and race control with their decades of motor racing experience should have known better.

Was this a freak crash? Oh yes definitely, but not in the sense that chances were a million to one. The chances of it happening were actually quite high, and it did happen. We were lucky not to have more people killed that day.

The subsequent FIA report is in my view ... 'poor'.

(* I would just like to add there that the lifting-guidelines for yellows and double waved yellows are extremely unclear. They give instructions like 0,5seconds slower in the sector of the yellow... but with the rain intensifying, that would already be the case anyway).

CART retired the #99 after Greg sadly died but IRL didn't. As a big Greg fan, I would be happy to see the number back.

I am with the view that a number is just a number, nobody can and ever will own a number, regardless of the sport.

I think a helmet means more than the number that the car runs. In F1 anyway, you can't even see the number.

btw Greg's helmet was absolutely badass

This shit is too much

Talking about Sutil, anyone heard from him about this? I think I'd be devastated hearing this. I'd blame myself. If I didn't spin out, there wouldn't be a recovery vehicle for Jules to crash into.....

Sutil and all marshalls on the scene that day were at risk of being hit and worse

Jacques Laffite had a similar situation after Tom Pryce crash, as he was collected by him and went down to see what happened. He was the first to see Pryce after the impact

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

No words can describe the pain that Jules' family and close friends must endure at the moment. Last year's Japanese Grand Prix will remain as one of those that were cursed. I can only express my deepest sympathy to Jules' loved ones and have a thought for this loving figure who left us. Such a tragic destiny...terribly sad

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I don't know if it's the right time to be going back and placing blame on the accident. There are two points about it that have annoyed me for years, though.

1. Double waved yellows mean slow down and be prepared to stop. Nobody adheres to it. It seems that if you lift and are a few tenths of a second slower than your best sector time, that's acceptable. It shouldn't be. The drivers should have been going through that corner at half their normal speed, but nobody did, and the FIA has never cared. I hope that the virtual safety car will fix this problem, as the drivers will be forced to slow down.

2. Marshals/drivers on the circuit, particularly on the outside of a corner (even more so in the rain) should always be a Safety Car, or a virtual one now. If a car goes off track in the wet because there's a lot of standing water at that section, there's every chance someone else will follow in. Especially because of the first point I mentioned.

We always say after a tragic accident that we can learn from it and make sure it never happens again. This one should never have happened in the first place, though. I remember several people on this forum questioning the decision not to have a Safety Car at Hockenheim, when one of the Saubers was on the pit straight and the marshals came running across the track. It sparked a discussion then. We knew it could happen. Sure, you can't account for every freak accident ever, but I think this one was more obvious.

Anyway, I don't know if this kind of discussion is particularly helpful at the moment, so feel free to delete if it's not deemed appropriate. I just feel frustrated that the whole thing was allowed to happen. RIP Jules.

Jacques Laffite had a similar situation after Tom Pryce crash, as he was collected by him and went down to see what happened. He was the first to see Pryce after the impact[/quote]

He was at the funeral as I saw a photo of F1 (and former) drivers were toasting to the camera.

Holy shit, please delete my comment, close this thread, and let this photo be the closing post of a HOF tribute thread of condolences to a lost and appreciated driver.

François