A letter to Jules - One year on…
Sunday 17th July 2016.
Oh Julio, I wrote to you exactly a year ago today from my old blog and i really can’t believe it has already been a year since you were taken away; I still think of you everyday and oddly enough to some people i live each day with you in and on my mind. Your fight to the very end inspires me everyday to fight for what i want in life and continuously stay strong. You never gave up, you fought your way through the various motorsport categories and then fought for your dream of becoming a WC in F1. You weren’t in a front running car but still you gave it your all and achieved an incredible P9 in Monaco which many people had deemed to be impossible, but you did it. And with them now officially ‘Manor Racing’, you are the only and will be the only ever person to ever score points for Marussia, and thats one of many achievements that you deserve. After your accident in Suzuka you fought mercifully for your life, 10 months is an incredible amount of time to be fighting for your life but you never seemed to give up. Unfortunately the realms of life ended up being too much and you were taken from us. But throughout your motorsport career you fought for what you deserved, you gained what you deserved in lower categories and were destined for incredible things in F1. And for that i salute you.
“I want to do all that i can to become world champion, and if i can’t i’ll be happy if i died trying” - Jules Bianchi
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A letter to Jules - Two years on…
Monday 17th July 2017.
“Racing drivers never die. Their spirits are too strong and they never go away” - Sir Jackie Stewart”
2 years. 2 years without you Julio and i have no words to describe just how much i miss you. It still physically hurts that you’re gone.
Despite missing you beyond words you still hold the ability to cheer me up (ironically enough i know it’ll be you to cheer me up today when i’m feeling so low), you still inspire me everyday with your fighting spirit and ability to just keep going on with that smile of yours which is still truly infectious.
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A letter to Jules - Three years on…
Tuesday 17th July 2018.
This one is the hardest so far. It’s getting worse. I don’t know why.
This year has been insane and you would be so freaking proud of it all!
We’ve had success with the foundation in funding a modified bed for patients with brain injuries.
We’ve had the introduction of the halo, and as ugly as it is J - it seems to of assisted in lessening injuries of drivers caught up in crashes. It’s serving us well.
The French GP returned and as hard as it was because you should of been there - you weren’t forgotten in any stretch of the word. The ladies still love you!
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A letter to Julio - Four years on…
Wednesday 17th July 2019.
How has it been 4 years since you were taken? How has it been nearly 5 years since we last saw that smile? Watched you drive a great race in a box of bolts? Heard you make jokes and wind up everyone with no repercussions because you had a mega poker face and an endearing mischievous innocence to you.
Still to this day nobody has anything bad to say about you. If we do talk about you in the negative then it’s about how we miss you and wish you didn’t have to go.
Everyone is doing so amazing. I’m sure you’re together with Herve, albeit shouting about shitty Ferrari strategies but most importantly continuing to guide Charles, Arthur, Lorenzo, Tommy and Melanie who are, together with your parents, making the most of life and living it up with you still in mind.
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A letter to Julio - Five years on…
Friday 17th July 2020.
Five years.
Cinq ans.
Five long years.
Half a decade without you.
A half decade that hasn’t gotten any easier.
I still think about you everyday and it’s not just because you’re still my phone home screen. I wonder what you’d be up to, where you’d be, whether we’d still be friends with all that’s going on in the world. I hope we would be, i believe we would be.
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A letter to Julio - Six years on…
Saturday 17th July 2021.
6 and 7. Six and Seven. Six et Sept.
Six years since you had to leave us and seven years since we last saw your smiling face.
Today has well and truly crept up on me this year. I’m not sure why. I just won’t allow myself to accept that today is the day. I feared i was over it. Over loosing you. Like i’d forgotten. Or you were gone for so long that it didn’t matter anymore. That thought made me feel sick and i hated that it could be a possibility. When people die, they get talked about less and less. Why? I guess because we live so much of our lives without you that we get to a point where we’ve dealt with every situation in the midst of grief and missing you and the amount of situations where we have to figure out how to do it without you, and with you not being here to witness it, get less and less. I put everything on it being this past year we’ve had. Of course there’s nothing new going on, nothing has been able to change. It’s just the same. I put all my faith in it being that and silently dreaded that i was over it. Over you. The only true racing idol i’ve had. The only one i’ve ever supported. Everyone else has their main fave, the one the dedicate their race watching lives to. All over this website, people have their favourite. You were mine. The only one i’ve ever had. How could i feel so blasé about it all. How could i do that. How could i ‘forget’ and not care about you.
I didn’t.
The second i woke up and saw the date, the pain hit me like a ton of bricks all over again.
It’s not that i didn’t care. It’s that i didn’t want to care. I couldn’t let myself accept that it’s been so fucking long. That the date keeps getting further away from when we last saw you. I couldn’t allow myself to face it. I don’t want to face it. So if it’s ok with you, i won’t. For this year, i’m going to pretend you did a Nico Rosberg. Raced in a top team, let’s go Ferrari because you were going there anyways and by god do they need some good publicity even if it is fake, you won a championship or two, maybe alongside Charles, took a big fucking pay check and said peace out motherfuckers i’m going to live the life of a billionaire and spend my days drinking wine and sunbathing on a yacht off a private island.
I may not of let myself accept it until now but i still really fucking miss you and it hurts so much that you’re not here.
I love you shit head, always.
.p.s THE HALO SAVED ROMAIN GROSJEANS LIFE AND AS HARD AS IT IS TO SAY, THANK YOU FOR LEAVING A LEGACY THAT HAS TIME AND TIME AGAIN SAVED LIVES. HIS KIDS HAVE A FATHER, HIS WIFE A HUSBAND, HIS PARENTS THEIR CHILD. YOU REMAIN SO IMPORTANT AND WE MISS YOU.
A letter to Julio - Seven years on…
Sunday 17th July 2022.
Seven years. Seven whole ass years man. When did time start going so damn fast? How are we already at 7 years?
Julio. Bro. I’ve tried writing this so many times and i keep selfishly circling back to this one thought. I’m well aware of how bananas it is and let’s be honest it’s nothing new from me is it so just hold with it, it’ll make sense eventually. I hope. lol.
A few weeks ago i realised i was stopping myself thinking about when i met you. When i first heard your name. When i first saw you race. When i jokingly promised you i’d give racing a chance and watch you climb to Formula 1 all those years ago. I don’t think i can face it. I can’t face it because i’m scared it’ll confirm that this year will mark you having been gone for longer than i knew you. You were such a massive part of my life for so many years. You were my guy, my number one. I’d never had a favourite athlete, a favourite driver or even a favourite team. You became that. You are that. My driver was you, my team was your team, we won together, we lost together. I was a big time JB fangirl. To be fair my childhood friends were too, except their JB fan-girling was of the Justin Bieber variety and well they were fools, the lot of them.
You’re still the only sports person i’ve ever had as my number one and now you’ve nearly been ‘out of my life’ for longer than you were in it and it’s kind of freaking me out.
I of course don’t know why. Nothing has changed this last 7 years. I still see your smiling face and find great joy and happiness in the memories you created for so many of us whilst experience such heartache of you not being here when you deserved so much to be. It’s like my brain is telling me that the last 7 years without you have taken up the whole of the memories from when you were here. 7 years of happy memories to cope with 7 years of loss, what happens as we rush toward the 8th? Believe me i know, i know it makes absolutely no sense. Especially since your legacy is thriving. Your name and memory is linked to so many amazing things and you continue to light up so many lives. The association, your family, the drive for safer races, the halo.
Every single day there is a reason to smile because of something that is linked to you. I mean we could be getting ourselves a few champions this year out of your friends and loved ones and you would be so damn happy. You’ve also yet again helped in saving a whole load of lives alongside your family and association who too continue to strive in empowering and helping those facing TBI’s.
The Bianchi legacy is amazing.
You, your family, your friends, competitors, teams, fans. Everyone who continue to hold you in their heart and fulfil their lives with the honour of having had you grace their lives. Your impact on this world was and continues to be stratospheric.
You truly are always remembered, sorely missed and forever loved.
You live on in so many people and nothing brings me more joy than seeing your family and friends thrive, love and live their lives to the fullest with you always by their side.
We miss you so much. I love you shit head.
A letter to Julio - Eight years on…
Monday 17th July 2023.
Legacy.
Damn. Eight years. If we’re just talking years, you’ve officially been gone longer than i knew you. 7 years supporting you, 8 years to the day without you. Still here though aren’t i. Still supporting you and everything you were, are and will become. Always
I don’t know where this one will go Jules. It was going to be a good one, a happy one because from a personal point of view, the last few years have freaked me out with how long it’s been and how i was feeling about it but then i got here, on the 8th anniversary (well nearly, it’s the 16th and i’m watching FE which will explain why this one is a tale of two halves - i always write these a few days in advance bc i ignore the day as much as possible) and well, i really fucking miss you and it hurts. It’s mad that i’m glad it hurts in a way but as per the last few letters, i was scared i didn’t care. I knew i did, i felt i did but i was scared i was forgetting you. I wasn’t. I haven’t. Unlucky for you.
So yes, back to business. It was supposed to be good, then FRECA went to Spa. It was going to be bad, so bad. Then we’re here in Rome with FE and we’re brought this tale of two halves.
A letter to Julio - Nine years on…
Wednesday 17th July 2024.
Written in the stars.
10 years and one (1) day. 10 years and one (1) day exactly. That was the gap between your highly revered Monaco drive and your protégé winning around there in his home race.
That sounds crazy as it is before you realise just how meant to be it was. I’ve supported Charles’ career since you were still here, i’ve stuck around with him and stayed with F1 until he got to Ferrari (and yes when he gets a shot at the title, i’ll turn up like these other fake fan trophy hunters and support him like i never left lol) but lad you know i was only ever really there for you and then for him and i just can’t do it. We’ve been through this all before though and the whole point of what i’m trying to say is that i never really see Charles without linking him back to you and your family and me thinking of you having a hand in his win seems like me projecting and shoe horning you in like all these clout chasing TikTok girlies do (I do fight them, i promise and i’m reliably informed this here site isn’t happy with them either)
But with the date, the history of how it happened, 10 years being a significant anniversary date, it being very nearly 7 years since his dad passed (adding that together you get 17)
It truly feels like it was written in the stars with you as the author.
A letter to Julio - Ten years on…
Thursday 17th July 2025.
How are we possibly here already. 10 years. Where has the time gone.
I’ve written this so many times i can’t even keep track anymore. I’ll let you in on a secret, all of these other letters, bar the first ever one on my last blog that i wrote the day you passed, have been written a bit in advance. Yes they’re unedited and posted on a timer because even now, every anniversary gets me all over the shop but still they get done at least the day before. This one? It’s literally Thursday the 17th of July 2025. It’s midday and i’m properly struggling. I can only assume it’s because of how significant that 10 year anniversary feels. Maybe it’s because i made a finalising point in that first letter (i hate that i deleted it, now would be a great time to re read it and react huh) about the 10th anniversary.
I pointed out the 1st year, then the 2nd, then the fifth and then i wondered about the 10th. That was the big number, the years and years and years in the future, a time inconceivable and far away. Yet here we are and i’m drowning? I just don’t know how we got here when it still feels like yesterday we were watching you on the drivers parade sheltering from the rain. 10 years is just scary man.
I guess the big thing i can remember from that 1st letter is me questioning what it would all mean. There was so much why you, why your wonderful family, why, why, why. It couldn’t just mean nothing. You and your lovely lovely family didn’t deserve this. You couldn’t just be a name in the past,
Good thing, you’re not. You’re still so remembered and your legacy lives on.
You’ve literally saved lives. When things inevitably go wrong #FIAthings people still say your name and how we promised we’d never let what happened to you happen to anyone else and thus hold these people to account and make them get their act together. Obviously following your passing they finally got their arses in gear and brought in the Halo and Indyscreens (can’t think of their name rn oops) and together with those who too lost their lives in the name of this sport, have encouraged the safety and life saving of so so so many other drivers. Your wonderful family and all their work in the rehabilitation of other people thrust into the brain injury world. That’s because of you. Despite not getting to that point, they recognised what would be your life had the injury not taken you and they know how important that is for other families and getting their loved one back to living a fullfilled life. I love them lol.
11 years and no proper ‘letter’. I don’t want it to be misconstrude, this isn’t about you not mattering or me forgetting you. I have the excuse that I couldn’t get on my Tumblr today but usually I do have one written out and scheduled, today I didn’t. It’s 22:31 as I write this so i’m still in time!
I think you just mean more than writing a poxy letter to on social media. It started when I was 16 years old, that first one on the day you died? my God was it a mess! I’m 27 now and it feels juvenile and weird.. back then I followed you like my school friends followed Justin Bieber and One Direction and writing to you was a way to let out my thoughts and keep the connection to you that i’d built, it kepts going and here we are
Maybe this will be technically be the last one, I’d not be surprised if it was, who knows
Just know that you mean the same to me now as you did then. I still remember you. I still dread this date (and 05/10) and remember you so often it’s unbelievable.
I never had to worry or put effort into trying, i could never forget you or the love I held for you then and still do now.
I know I will miss you always and never forget you.
Wherever you are I hope you’re resting in peace and are proud of those you love.
Always remembered Julio, forever🤍🕊️
[Image description: ten photos or groups of photos, each above its respective letter. This description will be in 3 parts due to character limits.
Part 1: One Year On - Four Years On
Part 2: Five Years On - Eight Years On
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Part 3: Nine Years On - Eleven Years On
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