F1 ENGINEER Calum Nicholas says he was left “broken” by the death of Jules Bianchi after his Japanese Grand Prix crash.
The Red Bull engineer worked with the French F1 driver at Marussia as a mechanic back in 2011 – his first job in the paddock.
During the 2014 Japanese GP, Bianchi lost control of his Marussia and clashed with a recovery vehicle.
The weather conditions in Japan at the time were treacherous and delayed the race from getting underway.
Following the collision, Bianchi suffered a diffuse axonal injury which is caused by severe damage to the head.
Bianchi spent nine months in a coma before tragically passing away in 2015.
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He was the first F1 driver to die from injuries that occurred during a Grand Prix since Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna.
Safety in the sport has come on leaps and bounds since then, with the introduction of the halo and clearer communication when a recovery vehicle is used.
That hasn’t helped Nicholas shake Bianchi’s death from his memory though.
Nicholas collected the wreckage of the car from the FIA garage and broke down in tears.
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In his book, Life in the Pitlane, he writes: “I was not in any way prepared, at the age of 24, to have been responsible for building a car that somebody later died in.
“Regardless of the cause of the crash not being a mechanical fault, the guilt of having been one of the mechanics responsible for that car broke me for a little while.”
Since leaving Marussia at the end of that season Nicholas has become a familiar face on Netflix’s hit show Drive to Survive as a key engineer in Max Verstappen’s pit crew.
As part of the Red Bull driver’s team, Nicholas has helped propel Verstappen to four straight F1 world titles.
The Brit has also worked with Lewis Hamilton on the Hamilton Comission, a research project into diversity in motorsport conducted by the seven-time world champion.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
