Formula 1 moves up start times at five races after Bianchi crash
Formula 1 will start five races an hour earlier after the horrific crash Jules Bianchi had at the Japanese Grand Prix in 2014.
The races at Australia, Malaysia, China, Japan and Russia are affected. The season-opener is at Australia and will start at 4 p.m. local time. The move is to prevent races from being run as daylight starts to fade away.
The governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) set up an accident panel to investigate the crash and one of its recommendations, in a report published last month, was for earlier starts.
“It is proposed that a regulation or guideline be established such that the start time of an event shall not be less than four hours before either sunset or dusk, except in the case of night races,” it said.
Formula One has floodlit races in Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain and the trend has been for later starts in Asia to boost television viewing figures in Europe.
Bianchi’s crash happened as the race at Suzuka was being held in the beginnings of a typhoon. As the bad weather approached the country, race organizers and Formula 1 didn’t move up the start time of the race to attempt to get it in before the weather turned for the worse. As the race was stopped and started because of heavy rain, Bianchi’s car skidded off the track during a local yellow period as it was raining.
The local yellow was for Adrian Sutil’s car, which was being retrieved by a crane at the time Bianchi’s car skidded off course. Bianchi’s car slammed into the crane and he sustained a severe head injury. He is still in a hospital in France.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
