Formula One drivers mourned French driver Jules Bianchi on Thursday, but made clear his untimely death would not change the way they go racing or their willingness to take risks.
The popular Bianchi died in hospital on Friday last week, nine months after his Marussia car slammed into a recovery tractor at the Japanese Grand Prix.
He was 25 and the first Formula One driver since Brazilian triple world champion Ayrton Senna and Austrian Roland Ratzenberger in 1994 to die from injuries sustained during a race weekend.
Brazilian Felipe Massa, who suffered a near-fatal head injury in Hungary in 2009, told reporters at the Hungaroring ahead of tomorrow’s race that he would drive as hard as ever.
“When you close your visor, you want the best, you want to finish in front... the way you drive, your thinking, I don’t think it will change,” said the Williams driver, who was with Ferrari at the time of his accident. “You just think about your job, your work. I don’t think that will change, but now I have Jules all the time on my mind.”
“We all know it could have been ourselves in that car, but it doesn’t really change anything,” said Force India’s Sergio Perez, who was with Bianchi at the Ferrari young driver academy.
Frenchman Romain Grosjean, who helped carry Bianchi’s coffin at Tuesday’s funeral at Nice Cathedral, agreed.
“It’s in our nature to take risk,” the Lotus driver said. “You need to be 100 percent in the car and not thinking about what could happen, if and if. We know it’s a dangerous sport, but I think that was a hard way to remember that.”
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