Formula One: Fading light, rain, factors in crash by Jules Bianchi?

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On tap this week:

• Bianchi’s accident should have been prevented
• Simulators play key role in Russian GP
• F1 tracks also make things too easy
• DeGrand’s grand season in Canada
• Quote of the Week: Vettel says podium doesn’t matter
• What’s the mayor’s next move?

There is likely a lot of hand wringing going on in Formula One today after rising star Jules Bianchi suffered serious head injuries in a late-race accident during Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix.

The 25-year-old Marussia driver lost control of his car in the closing stages of a soggy Japanese Grand Prix and slammed into the back of the front-end loader moving the stricken Sauber of Adrian Sutil, who had crashed in the same spot a lap earlier.

The circumstances of Bianchi's accident do not reflect well on F1's governing Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). With the 3 p.m. start time and a 20-minute suspension after two laps due to heavy rain, visibility may have been compromised as the light faded. To compound matters, the rain began to intensify right before Sutil's accident on Lap 43.

Since the race was 75 per cent complete and officially a full points grand prix at the end of Lap 40, not throwing a red flag when Sutil crashed was the first mistake.

The second error was allowing the circuit to use huge construction equipment to recover vehicles in an area where a car might hit it. Perhaps F1 has dodged this bullet previously, but it needs to act quickly to ensure that a similar accident doesn't happen again. FIA should demand that large cranes be positioned behind the tire barriers in most corners so cars can be removed without exposing other drivers to danger.

Lastly, the medical helicopter at the Suzuka Circuit was unable to transport Bianchi to the hospital because it would not be able to land when it arrived. It is also not known if the circuit informed the FIA of this, but sessions are not supposed to continue when the medical helicopter can't do its job.

Technically Speaking: It's a good bet that all the drivers already have dozens of laps of the new Sochi Circuit under their belts as they head to Russia for the inaugural grand prix on the weekend.

Although no Formula One car will put a wheel on the Sochi Autodrom before Friday practice, there's no doubt the circuit got loaded on the top teams' simulators to help their drivers learn the intricacies of the complex 18-corner, 5.853-kilometre street circuit.

Because that knowledge could be the difference between standing on the podium and ending up parked in a tire barrier, the F1 simulators are as close to driving the track as you can get.

"You literally are sitting in the car – it is the monocoque – you are just looking at a screen rather than a real racetrack," said Robert Wickens, of Guelph, Ont., who has been a regular visitor to the Mercedes AMG F1 Team simulator this season.

"It's as accurate as you can get and it's a great tool. Once you get your head around it, you just get into a zone and you don't even realize you are in a room in England when you are driving in China for example. It's very challenging mentally and you need lots of concentration because you don't obviously don't get the feel-of-your-ass-type sensation, it's more of a visual reference and finding your turn in points."

Wickens drives for Mercedes in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters Series. He also worked on the simulator for Red Bull's F1 team in 2008 when he was one of its F1 prospects.

And like everything in F1, simulator development keeps moving forward at a rapid pace.

"From the time I started with Red Bull to what I have been driving on this year, the evolution of the simulator is unbelievable," he said. "The dash and the 3-D screen are pretty cool. You can see screen for as far as you can turn your head. It's the best PlayStation game in the world."

Random Thoughts: The signing of 17-year-old Max Verstappen with the Toro Rosso team sparked a debate over whether a Formula One car is too easy today.

Verstappen, who will drive for Toro Rosso next year, became the youngest participant in an official F1 race weekend on Friday when he completed 22 laps in the first practice session. He was 12th quickest.

Many feel that a kid with little experience in open wheel being able to jump into a grand prix racer and instantly perform at a high level shows that the modern F1 car is too easy to drive.

Although the cars have adopted all sorts of technology over the years that have taken much of the control of the car out of the drivers' hands, changes to tracks have also played a huge role in making things less challenging for the racers too.

A case in point happened on Lap 26 of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix when Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton made a mistake under braking for Turn 1 and ran wide as he chased teammate Nico Rosberg for the lead. Hamilton got all four wheels off the circuit and ran onto the brightly coloured high friction tarmac lining the edge of the circuit before going even wider onto the paved run-off area.

"I went into turn one with the DRS (drag reduction system) open and there's so much less downforce when that wing is open. You've got to remember to close it again and then I started to turn and brake and it was still open, so the back end stepped out," Hamilton said. "It was very, very close but yeah, kept hold of it, didn't really lose too much time, so fortunate."

The Mercedes driver only lost about six-tenths of a second due to the excursion and then got right back to the business of hunting down his teammate. Two laps later, Hamilton powered past Rosberg on the long front straight and went on to victory. The win put Hamilton 10 points up on Rosberg in the title standings with four races to go.

Rewind 23 years and Hamilton wouldn't have been so lucky. In the 1991 Japanese Grand Prix, Nigel Mansell made a similar error in Turn 1 while chasing Ayrton Senna for second place and paid a huge price.

At the time, the outside of the corner was lined with a narrow strip of grass alongside a large gravel trap and getting all four wheels off usually ended with the offending car being beached. That's exactly what happened to Mansell who needed to win to keep his title hopes alive. Essentially, once Mansell got a wheel off, Senna was champion.

By the Numbers: Racing in Canada proved to be a great decision for St Louis racer Tristan DeGrand.

The 18-year-old driver dominated both the Toyo Tires and Quebec F1600 championships, scoring 18 wins and 13 poles in 24 starts in the tow series this season on his way to becoming the first competitor to win both titles in the same year. He also took five wins and two poles in the eight race F1600 Super Series for drivers in both the Ontario and Quebec divisions, but a disastrous final weekend – where he retired from both races in Trois Rivières – saw the title slip from his grasp. It all added up to an impressive record of 23 wins and 15 poles in 32 F1600 races in Canada this year.

"My decision to come to Canada and race wasn't a hard one. F1600 is known for being a great platform for drivers to learn about cars and the Canadian series offered me the best place to do that," he said. "I've learned a lot about how to control a championship and win races, something I'm hoping to do more of in the future. Racing in Canada was one of the best decisions we've made in terms of my development as a race car driver."

Where DeGrand goes next year remains a mystery after the youngster was one of six finalists for the Team USA Scholarship but failed to make the cut. The Missouri teen hopes to move up the ladder to faster cars in 2015, such as the USF2000 Series but has nothing in place for next season.

Quote of the Week: "In the end, I don't think it really matters. I think the most important thing, as we're all probably thinking, is that we hope the best for Jules [Bianchi], obviously currently not in the best shape but we hope that we get some very good news very soon."

– Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, when asked about his third-place finish in Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix. The race ended early after Marussia's Jules Bianchi crashed into a recovery vehicle and was transported to hospital for emergency surgery after suffering a serious head injury.

The Last Word: After a frustrating bad-luck season, a change of scenery may just be what the racing gods ordered for James Hinchcliffe.

Coincidently, Penske's signing of Simon Pagenaud last week opened a seat at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports (SPM) just might be exactly what the doctor ordered for the 27-year-old Oakville, Ont., native.

Rumours already had SPM chasing the Canadian because they knew Pagenaud was on the way out and the team may pull put all the stops to fill its empty seat so it can leverage Hinchcliffe's popularity to attract new sponsors. In addition, one of the SPM's owners, Oculus Transport founder Ric Peterson, hails from Calgary and would benefit from having Hinchcliffe to promote his business interests.

SPM signing Hinchcliffe would also go a long way to keeping its engine supplier Honda happy, since it uses the three-time race winner in Canadian TV ads.

It would also be a good move for Hinchcliffe, who just hasn't been able to find any momentum since joining Andretti Autosport three seasons ago. Although he put in a solid first year at Andretti in 2012 and then scored three wins the next season, Hinchcliffe also suffered through periods where just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

The 2014 season underlined that fact with Hinchcliffe suffering through a frustrating year that certainly tested his resolve.

Whether it was an ill-timed yellow flag that stole a win in Houston, being taken out by his teammate while challenging for the win in Long Beach, Calif., or getting hit in the head by a front wing endplate on the road course at Indianapolis and suffering a concussion, the 2014 is probably best forgotten.

One of the best ways to put the bad year behind him would be a new home with a smaller team that has proven it can win. It also just might be what Hinchcliffe needs to blossom.

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