Jules Bianchi: “Forever a champion in our hearts”

“Of course,” he said at the time, confidently but in no way arrogantly: “It would be a logical step for me.” But things turned out completely differently due to the accident in Suzuka a few days after these statements on October 5, 2014: coma, fight against it Death. Bianchi lost him. He died on July 17, 2015 in a hospital in his hometown of Nice. The memory remains.

Bianchi would now be in a top team and a race winner, Daniel Ricciardo recently wrote in a long post on Twitter. The Australian Formula 1 driver knew Bianchi. They went karting together as teenagers and became friends. Just like Bianchi was not only the godfather of the current young Ferrari star Charles Leclerc, but also a close, good friend. “In a way, it's as if Charles is now doing what Jules would have done. "It's like Charles is a delayed version of Jules," Ricciardo said. Little sensation in Monte Carlo Leclerc recently said that Bianchi probably deserved a cockpit at Ferrari even more than he did. He is “pretty sure” that Bianchi would have shown even more than himself. Bianchi was accepted into Ferrari’s “Driver Academy” in 2009 after test drives. After a stint as a reserve driver at Force India in 2012, the southern Frenchman became a regular driver in the premier motorsport class at Marussia, a Russian latecomer team powered by Ferrari.

Bianchi was considered a huge talent. © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Mark Thompson

But Bianchi achieved a small sensation with the mercilessly inferior car when he came ninth at the classic in Monte Carlo at the end of May 2014, where the driver is more important than on any other route, and thus got two points. “It was just wonderful,” Bianchi said at the time. At 126 km/h against the recovery crane A good four months later he was torn from his wonderful world in the worst possible way. It was a gray day, rain so heavy that the race in Suzuka, Japan had to be started behind the safety car. On the 41st lap, the then Formula 1 driver Adrian Sutil came off the track. As the German's car was hanging on a recovery crane, Bianchi also left the track before turn seven - and raced under the crane.

The force of the impact at 126 kilometers per hour was almost unimaginable: As an interim report from the International Automobile Federation (FIA) showed, Bianchi's head crashed into the recovery crane weighing 254 g - 254 times the weight of his head with a helmet. “It's as if the car had been dropped from a height of 48 meters to the ground. “Without a crumple zone,” FIA safety expert Andy Mellor told the specialist magazine “auto motor und sport” at the time.

“He will forever remain a champion in our hearts,” assured then-Ferrari test driver Jean-Eric Vergne at the memorial service in the Cathedrale Sainte-Reparate in Bianchi’s birthplace. Bianchi's helmet lay on the coffin. “The death of Jules is deeply unjust,” said the priest, ending the ceremony with an emotional appeal: “Jules was never able to climb on a Formula 1 podium, so I now ask you to applaud him.”

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Jules Bianchi: “Forever a champion in our hearts”

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