Graham Loudon recalls Jul Bianqui's accident

      It has been ten years since Jules Bianchi, the Marussia driver, passed away at the Nice hospital due to injuries sustained in the Suzuka crash. In the High Performance podcast, Graham Loudon, then the sporting director of Marussia, recalled that day.

      Graham Loudon: "2014 and 2015 were the most difficult periods of my sporting career. The worst thing in our sport is that the highs are very high, but the lows are desperately low, and they are not related to losing a race or a championship, but to people getting injured. I'm not only talking about drivers. There are many people in the team traveling with you from race to race, and when one of them gets hurt, it's terrible.

      In Suzuka in 2014, the weather conditions were challenging, and Jules was involved in an accident. I immediately realized everything was bad, but initially there was no information. Jules was sitting in the wrecked car and silent, and we comforted ourselves by saying that the radio was broken.

      I remember jumping off the pit wall and heading to the medical center – it's very close in Suzuka. But it was closed. More precisely, we couldn’t get in. No one could. We realized things were serious when the doctors took Jules to the hospital. That’s when John Booth, who was leading the team, and I got into a car and followed.

      Bernie Ecclestone arranged the flight for the Bianchi family. I can't imagine what thoughts they had when they got on the plane in France and flew to Japan. It’s a long journey, a lot of time passes. I remember when they arrived at the hospital and asked us how we were feeling. I never spoke about this before. These situations teach you a lot.

      I'm not a doctor. But when something like this happens, you regret studying engineering. I couldn't help in any way. I felt helpless. I wanted to become a doctor, to go and fix everything. Don’t look for logic here. It’s just emotions. There were excellent doctors there. And they were the only ones who could help Jules at that moment. But you ask yourself: 'What can I do for him?'

      All we could do was provide the family with accurate information. To make sure they knew he was receiving the best medical care.

      We stayed in the hospital for several days. Found a little corner and slept on the floor. I remember when I went outside after a few days, I was still in the team racing suit from the race day. I saw the sun and realized how bad everything was."