• Japanese GP - Race

Drivers' thoughts with Bianchi

ESPN Staff
October 5, 2014 « Massa was 'screaming' for race to stop | Power failure caused retirement - Alonso »
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Drivers across the grid have expressed their support to Jules Bianchi after the Marussia driver sustained a serious injury at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Bianchi suffered a serious head injury on lap 42 after aquaplaning off the circuit at Turn 7, hitting a recovery vehicle which had been dispatched to Adrian Sutil's Sauber after the German had spun out a lap earlier. The incident brought out the red flag, with the FIA confirming Bianchi had been taken to hospital at the conclusion of the race.

Lewis Hamilton, who won the race, said: "Our first thoughts go to Jules - it overshadows everything else when one of our colleagues is injured and we are praying for him. Next to this, the race result doesn't seem significant at all."

Sebastian Vettel, who finished third, added: "Right now we're all thinking about Bianchi and that's the biggest concern for us. We heard he had a pretty big crash and it's not nice when we don't know if the driver is okay.

"The race was tricky, it wasn't going too badly and the set-up we had for yesterday paid off. We tried a few different things with the strategy, but Bianchi is my main concern at the moment."

Jenson Button said: "For me, the race doesn't really matter today. I haven't seen anything of Jules' accident, but the most important thing to say is that all our thoughts are with him, his family, and his team right now. It's an accident that you hope never happens in Formula One."

Drivers also took to Twitter to support Bianchi. Fernando Alonso - a close friend of Bianchi, a Ferrari academy driver - started the hashtag #ForzaJules.

Marcus Ericsson had initially tweeted about the race, but then added that he was unaware of Bianchi's condition at the time.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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