Vergne: I have to race for Jules
Jean-Eric Vergne says he is only racing for Jules Bianchi in this weekend's Russian Grand Prix.
F1 faces a difficult weekend in Sochi as Bianchi fights for his life in hospital in Japan after crashing in to a recovery tractor at Suzuka on Sunday. Vergne has been distributing stickers to all the drivers carrying the message 'Tous avec Jules #17', and asked if he had questioned whether he should race this weekend, Vergne replied: "Not really.
"You can question yourself, what's the point of trying to fight with each other this weekend? Trying to fight for the last point or the last tenth or whatever ... but the only answer that I found is that I have to do it for Jules. I will not race for myself, I will not race for the team but for him this weekend.
"That's what gives me the motivation and the will. We are professional drivers and that's what we do, and that's what we're going to do this weekend."
And Vergne said he believes he will be able to control his emotions to be able to perform on track.
"I think [head and heart] have both got to work together. I really want to make a fantastic weekend for him. I will give my absolute everything for this, and that's all I can say. I want to do things properly."
Vergne also said he feels the FIA has made good strides over driver safety but believes there is a simple solution to preventing a repeat of Bianchi's accident in future.
"[The FIA] have made massive progress over the last twenty years on safety in F1, but F1 are not designed to hit tractors. So I think we should just simply not race when there is a tractor. This rule of a yellow flag to go slower; we were going slower anyway by two seconds, it was raining a lot more."