Bianchi's death proves F1 will never be safe

The last week in motorsport has been dominated by the tragic news of Jules Bianchi succumbing to the horrific head injuries he suffered at Suzuka last year.

I was fortunate to have lunch at Jackie Stewart's house a few months ago along with Damon Hill and John Watson. Jackie was kind enough to show us around his house, and just looking at the pictures of his friends and other drivers who had been killed or seriously injured reminded us of how much the sport has moved on.

Damon and I spoke to Jackie about Jules and his perspective on things was perhaps more pragmatic considering in his era they pretty much expected more than one driver to get killed every season. That conversation really was a reminder of how lucky we are and how we should be thankful to people like Jackie who did a huge amount for the safety of drivers and mechanics.

Jackie and Wattie raced in much more dangerous times. Damon, of course, grew up close to people like Jim Clark and Jackie, as well as experiencing the tragedy of Imola 1994 from much closer quarters than most. I, on the other hand, have only ever been in one race where another driver has been killed and that was sadly at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2013 when Allan Simonsen lost his life.

At the time I remember saying to my then-girlfriend, now wife, that it was a really weird feeling. The accident was quite early on in the race and the organisers told the teams the bad news quite soon after it happened, before it was announced to the world.

Chandhok and the Le Mans field raced on in 2013, amid "inner conflict" © LAT

I didn't really know what to do. On the one hand, a man that you had seen and spoken to just a few hours earlier was now gone so it was a complete shock, but then on the other hand you looked around you and the race just kept on going.

Inside I felt a degree of inner conflict, perhaps even a bit of guilt that we all carried on as we would have done otherwise. I didn't even know Allan so I couldn't imagine what it was like for his team-mates and friends in the paddock.

Racing drivers are weird people, though. We're wired up with such a competitive mentality within us that as soon as the helmet came on and it was my turn to get in the car, I went through the same corner at Tertre Rouge just as quickly as I would've done otherwise. I'm sure that nobody backed off for Tamburello or the Tosa kink any more on lap 32 than they did on lap six at Imola in 1994.

Rightly or wrongly, the concept of self-preservation just operates on a different threshold with racing drivers than with regular road users, who may have seen an accident on their local 'A' road and therefore automatically slow down through the same corner the next day.

Fortunately we live in an era where we have the FIA looking out for us and it doesn't need an Emerson Fittipaldi, Niki Lauda or Jackie Stewart to stage a protest on safety grounds.

We have the FIA to introduce virtual safety cars to avoid drivers pushing through areas where there may be recovery vehicles around. We have the FIA researching safer helmets and seats for drivers. We have the FIA to ignore the drivers like me who said that the HANS devices are 'uncomfortable and hard to use', and insist that we do it anyway and get used to it.

Safety pushes led by drivers including Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi have been replaced by ongoing FIA initiatives © LAT

We have them to look at the fences around the ovals and find ways to make them safer for the drivers and the fans behind them. We have them to listen to the drivers and say "your teams want the rules to be 'XYZ', but for your safety, we're going to make the rules 'ABC'".

Sadly, in this era just like in any other, the sport will never be completely safe.

I do believe that within the sport, Jules will be remembered as one of those great "what could've been" careers like Tom Pryce, Francois Cevert, or Stefan Bellof before him.

I first met him as an up and coming Formula 3 star in 2009 when I was racing in the GP2 series and his manager Nicolas Todt, who I'd known for a few years, introduced us. I have always had a soft corner for F3 and normally watch all the races on TV. It was clear from that stage that he had a lot of speed and also quite aggressive racecraft.

Jules always showed good speed in GP2 but he didn't seem on top of the tyres and that was coupled with a few crashes as well. His only campaign in Formula Renault 3.5 ended in him just missing out on the title, but his time in F1 was what impressed me the most.

I know what it's like to be with a struggling small team and Jules kept his head down and just got on with the job. He had clearly learnt tyre management and added that to his armory along with the qualifying speed.

There's little doubt that Jules' ninth-place finish in Monaco basically saved Manor from going under. Without that, the whole team and all the staff would be out of a job today. More than anything racing related, he was a decent, polite bloke. I wouldn't say we were friends in the way guys like Sam Bird or Jean-Eric Vergne were, more colleagues. He would always be very pleasant to chat with in the paddock or airports as we all travelled with the F1 circus together.

Chandhok first met Bianchi during his F3 days © XPB

The accident in Japan was a really unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the end of the day, a few feet either side of that crane would have saved his life but sometimes the sport, and life, throws a cruel blow.

The FIA has worked tirelessly over the years for safety. Max Mosley, Charlie Whiting and the FIA with Bernie Ecclestone's support have done a lot for making the sport safer since the black weekend at Imola 21 years ago. They pushed the teams towards safer cars, especially around the monocoque, and also for the circuits to be safer. I don't always agree with everything that's been done - asphalt run-off areas for example are one of my bugbears - but on the whole, the sport is infinitely safer thanks to their efforts.

What happened with Jules at Suzuka last October was a bit of a freak accident. Any driver that gets into a race car understands the dangers of the sport, but at the same time you can't get into a race car fearing the worst - the day you do that is the day you need to stop. We know the dangers involved but our love for racing supersedes anything else.

Goodbye Jules. Your death left a career's potential unfulfilled, but more importantly meant a good bloke taken away from the world much too early.

Chandhok's column appears as part of this week's issue of AUTOSPORT magazine, which features a comprehensive tribute to Jules Bianchi: including reflections on his karting career, his time on the single-seater ladder and his day of days in the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix