Didier, Jules Bianchi and Ho Pin Tung have been injured last Saturday during Budapest feature race. Can you describe exactly what happened during the incident?
Didier Perrin: What you have to understand is that there are two phases that led up to this unfortunate result. First, Bianchi went off the track and rejoined but by then he was perpendicular to the other cars and he collided with Dani Clos. In that first collision with the Spaniard’s rear left wheel, Bianchi lost his nose cone, an element that is crucial in protecting a driver from a frontal impact. By then, Bianchi’s front car was facing the field coming at high speed. That’s when happened the front impact with Tung. That second contact was particularly hard on Bianchi due to the fact that his nose cone should have lessen the shock, but without it, his tub was unprotected and the energy of the impact has been transferred to the driver’s back by the very rigid carbon-fibre monocoque. Even if the impact did not happen at high speed, none of the energy has been lessen by the nose cone explaining why the driver was injured.
Since the inception of the GP2 Series in 2005, safety has always been a number one priority…
Didier Perrin: Absolutely. We always consider safety as our upmost priority and our cars have always been designed, produced, tested and validated to match the top level F1 safety standards. The FIA does not request us to meet these standards but we want to do so in order to give the best possible safety to our drivers. It is important to understand that the circumstances of this weekend’s accident were very unusual due to a chain of happenstances. Thankfully, it happened at low speed.
We guess you are designing the third generation GP2 car to match the same level of safety?
Didier Perrin: That is correct. The GP2/11 that will debut this winter in GP2 Asia has been designed and homologated to reach the 2010 F1 safety standards. It sustained successfully all the push tests, crash tests and it’s matched all the requirements of safety standards of Formula One. In nearly six years, fortunately, we have never had an incident with terrible consequences because we are constantly working on safety. For instance, we are currently studying new safety devices for our next generation car in collaboration with the FIA. When it comes to the safety of our drivers, we never rest.