GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: John S on June 08, 2016, 05:02:27 PM
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Yes they can, but would Jules himself want this?????????
Surely race drivers accept this risk?
All I can see coming from this is a halting of all wet races if the court rules entirely in their favour, no series organiser - F1 or otherwise - will want to take the chance.
http://en.f1i.com/news/56599-bianchi-family-launches-legal-action-fia-marussia.html
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Every time I've raced, I had to sign a waiver, exempting the track, owners, sponsors, etc from any responsibility for injury or death. If little, back woods dirt bull rings do it, surly Bernie's top priced legal eagles have something similar.
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Every time I've raced, I had to sign a waiver, exempting the track, owners, sponsors, etc from any responsibility for injury or death. If little, back woods dirt bull rings do it, surly Bernie's top priced legal eagles have something similar.
Legally, those waivers rarely stand up in court.
If you're hurt because someone did something stupid, a signature is no protection.
I agree that F1 drivers accept the risk. Hopefully the outcome of this is a clear delineation of what risks people are taking in their professional lives.
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Years ago Mark Donohue's wife sued Goodyear over his death. Lots of people thought that it would be the end of racing if she won. As I recall, it was settled out of court (maybe Cossie remembers better than I) with the usual disclaimers and racing continued unabated.
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My views on the Bianchi accident I think are known. But here they are anyway. I throw the entire blame on the FIA and Charlie Whiting for allowing the tractor on to a dangerous part of a closed racetrack while cars were running at dangerous speed. The tractor should never have been allowed there unless all the cars were slowed to SC speed (not VSC speed).
The danger wasn't caused by racing in the wet, it wasn't even caused by Bianchi apparently driving faster than he should have been at the time. The accident was caused when they took a 12 ton tractor and placed it in front of a modern safety barrier. End of story.
I think the Bianchi family's only fault is that they are bothering to include the team and the FOM. Both were just spectators with no control over what happened. Suing Bernie will only get you a gauntlet of lawyers to grind the lawsuit into the ground. Marussia is bankrupt and won't have anything to say nor to offer.
IM-not-so-HO Whiting should be fired (should have been right after the event if the FIA really had any interest in protecting itself), and the FIA should be handed punitive damages to be put toward developing safety features preventing anything similar from ever happening again, from simply paying to rent and install cranes to reach every possible corner of every track in the short term, to a permanent, tested and tried head protection system, be-it the windscreen or the halo or something else not yet developed, to written and understood rules for all race directors going forward that nothing, absolutely nothing should be placed between a car at speed and a safety barrier.
A punitive fine in the neighbourhood of what the FIA charged McLaren for some errant photocopying would do fine.
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Years ago Mark Donohue's wife sued Goodyear over his death. Lots of people thought that it would be the end of racing if she won. As I recall, it was settled out of court (maybe Cossie remembers better than I) with the usual disclaimers and racing continued unabated.
As I recall, Donahue's widow won a judgement in state court. Goodyear appealed the verdict and an undisclosed out-of-court settlement was reached.
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The danger wasn't caused by racing in the wet, it wasn't even caused by Bianchi apparently driving faster than he should have been at the time. The accident was caused when they took a 12 ton tractor and placed it in front of a modern safety barrier. End of story.
I think the Bianchi family's only fault is that they are bothering to include the team and the FOM. Both were just spectators with no control over what happened. Suing Bernie will only get you a gauntlet of lawyers to grind the lawsuit into the ground. Marussia is bankrupt and won't have anything to say nor to offer.
IM-not-so-HO Whiting should be fired (should have been right after the event if the FIA really had any interest in protecting itself), and the FIA should be handed punitive damages to be put toward developing safety features preventing anything similar from ever happening again, from simply paying to rent and install cranes to reach every possible corner of every track in the short term, to a permanent, tested and tried head protection system, be-it the windscreen or the halo or something else not yet developed, to written and understood rules for all race directors going forward that nothing, absolutely nothing should be placed between a car at speed and a safety barrier.
A punitive fine in the neighbourhood of what the FIA charged McLaren for some errant photocopying would do fine.
I think you're wrong over this Scott and I feel Mike Lawrence writing on pitpass.com explains it much better than I can:-
Jules hit a mobile crane and it can be argued that it should not have been where it was. Every circuit has its own topography, therefore its own problems and its own solutions. Suzuka had used mobile cranes for years and I would like to see evidence of any serious objection to the practice before Bianchi's accident. The circuit is not only used for racing throughout the season, but for track days and a racing school.
The second Marussia, driven by Max Chilton, negotiated the same corner, in the same conditions, under the waved yellow flags, but at an appropriate speed. Max finished the race and the car had passed every crash and safety test. The team in the pits cannot control the decisions of a driver on the track.
Jules Bianchi drove too fast for the conditions. That was clear at the time and telemetry bears it out. I can understand his family's distress, but I have no time at all for the blame and compensation culture, it is a pestilence that damages society and it has been largely the creation of ambulance chasing lawyers.
At Suzuka he made a small error, he should have braked a second or so earlier, that is how small the mistake was, but he didn't do that and paid with his life.
Extracts taken from 'High Value' article, courtesy Mike Lawrence pitpass.com, Tues 31st May.
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Aside from being enlightened to Mr Lawrence's opinion on punitive lawsuits, I see no new information to sway my opinion. I don't doubt Bianchi made a mistake, but some make it sound as if he was practically suicidal. If you want a less biased view, go have a look at the analysis the boys at TheJudge13 did. Nobody's talking about it because they aren't allowed to.
https://thejudge13.com/2016/06/08/revelations-of-bianchi-accident/
Brilliant quote by Prost - “It is cars and tracks [that have been improved] and there was only one thing left: it was this f*cking truck on the track."
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There is an old pilots saying that aviation rules are written in blood. It's much the same in racing. Rules often don't get changed until somebody dies. I hope the new "halos" are tested in this type of accident.
I still don't see any justification for the lawsuit. No matter how safe we try to make it, the chance of death is part of being a race driver. Jules knew that and accepted the risks.
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I am pretty much with Scott on this.
Part of the letter, which I read, suggested the ". . errors were made in the planning, timing, organisation and conduct of the race which took place in dangerous conditions during the typhoon season in Japan." With no specific clarification, it sounds almost as though the family believes that the FIA (et al) are guilty of planning to - and running - the race under the expected conditions. That is a bit of a stretch, but I won't go too far down that road.
I seem to recall that following that horrible accident, the discussion in this forum pointed to, among other things, the location of the lights/flags/marshals were part of what contributed to the accident happening. I still think that is a factor, which would fall on the FIA, Charlie and the circuit, but not FOM or anyone else really.
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No matter how safe we try to make it, the chance of death is part of being a race driver. Jules knew that and accepted the risks.
On a closed racetrack with race cars and safety barriers, I completely agree. Racing is inherently a dangerous sport and every competitor and track worker is responsible for their own wellbeing. However bringing a tractor onto the track in unsafe conditions with cars at speed takes that right and responsibility out of the equation for me.
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I agree with Scott here, because if any vehicle which was supposed to be used to exact a damaged vehicle lies in front of the safety barrier, then what is the point of the barrier in the first place? They should either stopped the race or find a way to keep the barrier between the racing cars and moving vehicle for the rescue. I agree with the lawsuit, because I had always felt FIA, the people who were responsible for the safely of the drivers almost got away with an error, so fatal, that it took away one of the most promising driver of this generation.
I hope they should fight with all they have, and should not settle outside court, because this is a fight for the safety of the drivers, it is a matter of principle.
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I hope they should fight with all they have, and should not settle outside court, because this is a fight for the safety of the drivers, it is a matter of principle.
It's exactly this scenario that worries me, yes of course driver safety is very important but if driver safety is put above all else then I fear for the future of all motorsport. - Driverless cars anyone?
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It's exactly this scenario that worries me, yes of course driver safety is very important but if driver safety is put above all else then I fear for the future of all motorsport. - Driverless cars anyone?
Oh come on...ALL I am talking about is intelligent officiating. Why all the drama about fearing for motorsport? Motorsport can be exciting and fun, but for the 3-4 minutes per race (more or less, depending on conditions) when a large heavy object must be brought in to tidy things up, the race can be paused by either a SC or some other rule or technology that limits cars to SAFE speeds around the danger areas (I personally don't find the VSC speeds anywhere near SAFE). Or better yet, a way to extract cars that never requires large heavy tractors to be brought onto a racetrack to begin with. Why does that lead us to driverless racing? Do you just wanna punch Whiting on the shoulder and say "Good Job!" when he makes a dangerous mistake, or do you want to correct it?
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This is a horrible situation and I'm not judging a family that has lost a very young man.
However, no amount of money will bring him back, plus the sport has taken even more steps to improve safety after the incident. Finally, it was an 'accident'. Jules was driving too fast (the data proved this) and then he was just really unlucky; two metres left or right and he would have survived. There was no negligence or blatant stupidity - just an unlucky accident. It seems wrong to try to 'go legal'.
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This is a horrible situation and I'm not judging a family that has lost a very young man.
However, no amount of money will bring him back, plus the sport has taken even more steps to improve safety after the incident. Finally, it was an 'accident'. Jules was driving too fast (the data proved this) and then he was just really unlucky; two metres left or right and he would have survived. There was no negligence or blatant stupidity - just an unlucky accident. It seems wrong to try to 'go legal'.
I've read in other cases that for insurance companies to pay out, there has to be an investigation into if something went wrong or not. Perhaps this is the only way for Bianchi's family to get their due. They're not really trying to get their pound of flesh from the track, but rather jumping through hoops to get what they've earned from insurance, with Suzuka et al. being simple playing pieces.
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The FIA already had their own investigation. They discovered that as soon as they could pin the blame on the guy lying in the hospital bed, there was nothing more to discuss.
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In case any of you are wondering why I didn't comment on this earlier... I have to be careful what I say about this, as I am in correspondence with some of the lawyers involved in this case. (And before anyone asks, none of the legal teams involved have hired me - yet). So I'm trying not to say anything that isn't either in, or reasonably easily derivable from, information in the public domain.
There are a few things I probably should say for the sake of clearing up some confusion:
John S: racing drivers accept the risk of accidental injuries and fatalities. So do the Bianchis. They simply don't regard Jules' accident as being in that category. In an interview he did with Auto Hebdo on 23 December 2015, Phillipe Bianchi said:
"Jules n'a pas été victime d'un accident comparable à celui de Justin Wilson, par example, qui fut un fait de course (sur l'ovale de Pocono, Pennsylvanie, en août dernier, lors de l'avant-dernière manche d'Indycar. Ndlr). Ces fameux risques du métier. Ce qui est loin d'être le cas de celui de Jules."
As far as I can translate into English: "Jules has not suffered a similar accident to that of Justin Wilson, for example, who was racing (on the Pocono oval, Pennsylvania in August, during the penultimate round of the Indycar series. Editor's note). These famous occupational hazards. This is far from the case for Jules."
Besides, a family which had experienced one of its members die (Lucien, Jules' great-uncle, in the 1969 Le Mans) and another get badly burnt (Mauro, Jules' grandfather, in the 1968 version - that Lucien won) long before Jules was born is hardly going to be under any illusions about the degree of natural hazard it possesses. They're more bothered about the unnatural hazards...
cosworth151, I am surprised that there is nothing in the FIA's written regulations that indemnifies them. But there isn't, as far as I can tell. My guess is that it's in the fine print of the Superlicences, since that effectively acts as a driver's access to F1 races. It will certainly also be on the passes that everyone with paddock access is required to wear.
This works well against regular incidents. Any injury lawyer worth their salt knows this, and will advise their client to settle or plain drop the case in such circumstances. However, the law in many countries, including France (where the FIA is based) and England (where FOM and Marussia - Russian license notwithstanding - is/was based) prevents anyone from being indemnified against negligence of reasonable actions reducing the risk of egregious injury/death. And this is why the disclaimer doesn't work well in court - the cases that get to court are almost always ones where the disclaimer had already been tested by the appellant's counsel and found wanting. Disclaimers are good at stopping cases from reaching court in the first place, rather than for granting "not guilty" verdicts to respondents already in court. Again, it's the difference between natural and unnatural risk.
J. Clark, the scheduling of races, in the normal calendar/intended timing sense, is FOM's responsibility. The FIA can object if the race is unsafe or its national sporting authority hasn't paid its dues to the FIA (or if someone involved is otherwise in bad standing with the FIA). Only once the calendar is signed off does FOM lose responsibility for when a race is run. (In unusual situations, such as the last-minute negotiations Suzuka 2014 experienced, it appears both FOM and FIA were involved. If a misstep occurred there, either or both could be in trouble).
As for Marussia... ...a safety car component failed. It's natural that they be brought into the case, even if it's only to find out why that happened.
There are several points from others of you that I want to answer... ...and perhaps when all this settled down, I'll be able to do so. I hate that I have to write these words. I hate this whole scenario.
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Thanks for the update Ali, and proud to hear that 'one of ours' has been involved in some of the discussions (I 'm surprised that you don't have an executive role at the FIA by now). We'll look forward to an insiders guide to the trial upon its completion.
Wink if they're using my approach :D
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Thanks very much, Ali. It's great to have your insights on this (and everything else.) You do a fantastic job of clarifying the finer points of the rules and the law.
I hope somebody involved in the case has the good sense to bring you on board. :good:
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I realise this topic has cobwebs in it, but there's been an important update. It looks like we have an amicable settlement (http://www.stewartslaw.com/jules-bianchi-statement-of-the-family-of-f1-driver.aspx).
I want to wait for the dust to settle before commenting further, but you've been supportive of me and deserve to be kept up-to-date (especially since the press and the FIA don't seem interested in picking up on this item for some reason).
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Thanks. Ali. The Bianchi family have done a wonderful thing with this settlement.