#Forza Jules
The issue of safety in motorsport hung heavily at Fuji in the wake of the dreadful accident to Jules Bianchi at Suzuka the previous weekend, the drivers and senior executives from the Championship adding to the global response to the #Forza Jules campaign of moral support from the Fuji grid.
Full Course Yellow
On track there was the opportunity to see the newly refettled Full Course Yellow ‘Slow Zone’ process in play during the race, the circuit wide imposition of an 80km/h speed limit was very well observed, with just a few runners taking a few moments to spot the flags.
The introduction of a countdown back to Green Flag running also seemed to work well. As always the key to the success of such a policy is in its observation by competitors but this seemed a good start, an investigation into “Several cars reported as taking advantage” resulting in no further action and with no rumblings from the paddock post race. A real positive note after the concerns raised over the direction of the response to the multiple incidents following sudden heavy rainfall at COTA last month.
The comparison with the hugely and repeatedly interruptive Safety Car processes at Petit Le Mans was a stark one
CLM/ Lotus Fire
On the report card at Fuji on the other side was the response to the very serious fire that befell the #9 CLM/ Lotus, Christophe Bouchut hugely fortunate to escape serious injury when the car burst into flames in the final hour of the race after apparently suffering a failure in the low pressure fuel system (the area of the fuel system that failed can be seen by examining the telemetry from the various fuel flow meters.
From my vantage point in the commentary booth directly opposite the car there was the rather unwelcome opportunity to watch the series of events that unfolded.
Before that though it’s important to report what happened from the driver’s perspective. Bouchut telling Louise Beckett in pitlane soon afterwards that he had smoke in the cockpit, looked to his side and then had flames in the cockpit (which were close enough to cost the Frenchman the eyelashes on his left eye!) He snapped his visor shut, could not find the kill switch because of the smoke and flame and opted to bale out.
That assessment of the incident is fully confirmed by the video of the car entering pit lane below.
Seconds later the car was almost fully ablaze from the cockpit backwards, the car stopped in pitlane, just outside race control but not blocking pit in.
The first responders, as can be seen from these videos, were three Rebellion mechanics (the team in the first two garages, closest to the car), with a pair of marshals arriving seconds later around 30 seconds after Bouchut decamped. Thereafter another Rebellion mechanic, more marshals and then the Lotus mechanics arrived, all with extinguishers, and all before the first of two fire tenders arrivers, the first seen in the background of the first film a full two minutes after Bouchut stopped, but taking more than a further 90 seconds to get into position to fight the fire (by which time it was finally out with a Lotus mechanic having bravely managed to hit the kill switch!)
At least two further responders, both Lotus mechanics, and both fighting the fire from the live pitlane side of the car, had their overalls and/ or shoes alight from burning fuel at points during the several minutes it took to finally extinguish the flames with powder extinguishers insufficient to deal with the quantities of fuel leaking from the car. It was one of these Lotus mechanics that finally managed to get the left hand cockpit door open and hit the kill switch.
Marshals moved into place to deploy yellow and later slippery surface flags at pit in to warn incoming cars of the hazards but the pitlane remained open, a situation which looked very hazardous with several responders between the Lotus and the live lane, and leaking and/ or burning fuel flowing towards the live lane.
As always in such cases there are undoubtedly lessons to be learned: The response time for the fire tender seemed too long, and there are questions to be asked on the decision not to close the pitlane, visibility from Race Control may have been an issue here with the more hazardous side of the car obscured both by the car and by smoke
There are questions to be asked too around how practiced the Lotus drivers were in egress from the car, Bouchut later observing that he had never had to open the door from the inside before “It was always done by the mechanics before then”. There’s also the question as to how burning fuel managed to enter the cockpit “like a flame gun” in the words of Christophe when encountered at Haneda Airport by DSC on Monday morning.
The fact that the sum total of damage here is one LMP1 car with evidently serious but as yet unknown damage levels (though the car is en route to Shanghai with the team intending to repair it), and a drivers lost eyelashes is hugely fortunate. Thank heaven that there is the opportunity for a review with that tally, and not the altogether more catastrophic effects of the previous week’s incident at Suzuka.
GG
