Jules Bianchi dies from injuries sustained at Japanese GP

[Kchrpm]

My only guess is that they feel that they are in a new era now, where before potential death was considered an accepted hazard, but now they want to establish that it isn't, shouldn't be, and won't be.

That's the only reason I can think of, aside from the somewhat morbid admission that if they did it for every driver that died during F1 activities previously, there would be very few numbers left.

Oh, wait. Didn't they used to have numbers assigned to/selected by the manufacturers, and just in the last year or so they switched to numbers being assigned to drivers that stay with them their whole career? Perhaps that's another reason.

[IMOA]

It's quite simple, last year was the first year in F1 where drivers had their own numbers. Previously there was some different systems of assigning numbers but all of those systems assigned pairs or numbers to teams so there wasn't a number to retire.

[FaultyMario]

Here:

Motorsport governing body the FIA is retiring car number 17, which Bianchi carried last year, in his honour.

The FIA said: "As Formula 1 car numbers are now personally chosen by each driver, the FIA believes it to be an appropriate gesture to retire Jules Bianchi's number 17.

"As a result, this number can no longer be used for a car competing in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship."

[Freude am Fahren]

[XHawkeye]

Si queréis saber más del entierro de Jules #Bianchi seguid a @jjclement37 que esta allí.



A beautiful picture from @vladimirrys of Jules Bianchi. #CiaoJules #JB17 #RIPJules