Leading F1 drivers "have backed a move to implement changes in the wake of the accident that left Jules Bianchi in a critical condition," according to Andrew Benson of the BBC. The FIA "is working on a plan for a 'virtual safety car' to ensure drivers slow for warning flags." The "virtual safety car" idea "would mean drivers being limited to certain predetermined lap time in the event of an incident that would previously not have been regarded as needing a safety car." Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said, "The problem with flags is that you want to be safe but you want to lose as little time as possible. So you're always on the knife-edge with it." Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso added, "I support it. In fact I raised the point in the drivers' briefing [on Friday] because between the Japan and Singapore races I went into an indoor go-kart circuit and when there is a yellow flag they push a button and the engines cut and we all go at the same speed. If some kind of similar system can be done also in F1, you maintain the gap, there is not a rush, nothing to be done, just slow down, same for everybody." F1 Race Dir Charlie Whiting agreed with the teams that "they would work on introducing a system to limit lap times when officials felt an incident could be cleared relatively quickly, but when workers, marshals or recovery vehicles needed to be on track to return it to racing condition." It is an extension of the system "currently used when a safety car is deployed." But the FIA is planning to "run a test of a new system after one of the practice sessions at the next race in Austin, Texas in three weeks' time" (BBC, 10/11).
'A PERFECT STORM': In N.Y., John F. Burns wrote at the session on Friday, "the federation officials, not renowned for their transparency in times of crisis, offered a rare -- and for the officials involved, painful -- chronicle of the decisions, or lack of them, that appear to have contributed" to Bianchi's accident. The accident has shaken F1 "like no other event since the death of the Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna in a 190-mile-an-hour crash at Imola, Italy, in 1994." Unofficial estimates by F1 experts "have put the force exerted on Bianchi’s car as it came to a halt, its top sheared off by the underside of the tractor’s counterweight, at more than 200 Gs, far beyond what has generally been considered survivable by those who research air crashes and other high-velocity accidents." Federation officials have said that "other major sports -- equestrianism and mountaineering among them -- have safety records that are far worse." Also at play were what Whiting described as a mixture of chance factors that he called "a perfect storm." Among these, Whiting listed the "appalling weather and a strong element of misfortune in Bianchi’s having left the track on a path that carried him straight to the site of the recovery operation that was centered on the wrecked car of the German driver Adrian Sutil." Broadcasters who have examined the footage said that "Bianchi was traveling" at about 110 mph when he hit the tractor (N.Y. TIMES, 10/11).
