- Japanese GP - Race
Drivers say conditions were not too bad in Suzuka
Several drivers have said they did not feel the conditions were that bad at the time of Jules Bianchi's accident at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Bianchi suffered a severe head injury after sliding off the track and hitting a recovery vehicle at Turn 7 on lap 42 while double yellows were waved following Adrian Sutil's crash. The rain had increased in the laps prior after a spell of light drizzle, with Felipe Massa saying in the aftermath he had been "screaming" for the race to be stopped.
Kimi Raikkonen said the conditions could have been worse but also admitted the first ten laps - which were run under the safety car - proved how difficult it is to keep the car on the road at any speed in wet conditions.
"At the beginning of the race we were doing 100km/h and you can still aquaplane," Raikkonen said. Even if you slow down you might get into trouble. You can still go off if there's water and it's as simple as that. I don't know what happened for sure, but hopefully it's OK.
"I didn't think that [the conditions] were so bad, but obviously it started to rain a bit more. I was on intermediates, but it was still OK. It didn't look so bad, obviously some places could be a bit more wet, but I don't know what happened."
When asked if it was safe, Raikkonen said: "Obviously it started to rain a bit more and got wet out there. If you stay on your line it's a bit better, but I can only talk for myself. For sure, it was close to having to change the tyres and we changed the tyres, but then it was a safety car and yellow flags. Was it safe? Is it safe ever? You cannot say now it's safe and then one lap later it isn't safe. The conditions were tricky and getting a bit more rain with the used tyres is tricky always."
Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiments of his fellow countryman, but said Bianchi's accident could have happened to anybody.
"I think there's been more difficult track conditions than this," Bottas said. "It's just a difficult track in the wet. I'm not the one to say that - until that the race was okay, there was nothing special happening and it was all okay. I think it was just a really, really unlucky situation. If it's wet it's always going to be tough and you can easily go off - this is what happened today. Of course it needs to be looked at to see if there's anything we can learn from it so it doesn't happen again."
After the race Lewis Hamilton was also of the view that the conditions could have been worse.
"[The conditions] weren't that bad," he said. "It was wet, obviously, but I've had much worse, much worse races in terms of aquaplaning and stuff. It started really badly and got quite intense and then they stopped the race and when we went back out there it was good.
"I was going through that sector and it's one where you have to have a big lift under the yellow flag but I could see there was a tractor and one car was being lifted but it wasn't until it was red-flagged that I could see there was another car somewhere in the mix there. I couldn't really see what was going on there but I really hope that he is OK."
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