The world of Formula One racing has been rocked by it’s first in-race driver death since the passing if Ayron Senna in 1994. Jules Bianchi, who crashed during last year’s Japanese Grand Prix, has died from his injuries nearly nine months later.
Bianchi was far from a household name in the US, but in his native France he was nearly a national hero, not so much for his racing accomplishments – which were plenty – but for his promise for the future. At age 25, he had risen through the European open-wheel ranks before advancing to Formula One, where he served as a test driver for Ferrari and Force India before moving to the Marussia team.
At Marussia, he scored the first F1 points for both himself and the team at the Monaco Grand Prix in 2014. That performance in effect announced him to the world as a star of the future.
During the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, which was run in treacherously rainy conditions, Bianchi’s car collided with a tractor that was removing the disabled car of another driver who had run off course at the same spot. Bianchi’s injuries were massive, and hope for recovery was never very high. But the news this week is nonetheless heartbreaking.
Image selected from Wikipedia via Creative Commons
