No action taken after turn one shunt

Jules Bianchi and Giedo van der Garde have escaped censure from the stewards after their Japanese Grand Prix ended before the first corner.

While attention focused on the front of the pack, and the bad starts by Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel that allowed Romain Grosjean into the lead, the jostling pack spat out two of its backmarkers in an accident that saw van der Garde make hard contact with the tyre wall bordering the main straight.

"My start was okay but, going into turn one, I was squeezed between both the Marussia cars and had nowhere to go," the Dutchman recalled, "I lost my front wing in contact with Bianchi and then the car went straight off and into the wall. It was quite a heavy impact, but I'm okay. Obviously it's disappointing, but it was a racing incident and sometimes these things happen."

Being the driver making contact from behind, van der Garde's explanation of the 'racing accident' is understandable, but Bianchi was not about to point the finger of blame on a weekend when little has gone right for his side of the Marussia garage.

"All in all, I think this is a weekend that was destined not to come my way, which is a shame, as I love the Suzuka circuit," he lamented, "We did our best to fight back and I was very confident in the way we would approach the race. Unfortunately, as I turned into the first corner on the opening lap, van der Garde hit my rear wing, which pushed me off track and into the gravel. There's nothing more to say really, except my thanks to the team for a lot of hard work this weekend."

The race stewards obviously concurred with the drivers and, having postponed their investigation into the accident until after the race, promptly decided that no further action was required.

"The incident was the result of actions by the drivers of car 21 (Giedo van der Garde) and car 23 (Max Chilton), which contributed to car 21 impacting the rear right of car 22 (Jules Bianchi)," an official FIA statement confirmed, "The stewards do not believe either the driver of car 21 or car 22 were wholly or predominately to blame for the incident."

The remaining Caterham of Charles Pic went on to beat the lone Marussia of Max Chilton by an unrepresentative 19 seconds after a late-race slip by the young Briton.

"I was happy with the way our race was panning out but, on the prime tyre in the final stint, I struggled a lot more and made a small mistake, going onto the marbles, which caused me to go off," Chilton sighed, "From then on, with those tyres, there was little I could do to recover.

"However, although we lost out in the end, I think we have to focus on the positives. The car is a lot stronger and we are in a good place for the fight with the Caterhams."