It is less than two months since the shock of Cyril Blais’ untimely death. The tragedy occurred 10 days before the Tokyo EPrix and it was an extremely raw Citroen Racing team that arrived in Ariake district during that hot and sultry summer week in Tokyo.
Quite how they were able to function, let alone take two podium positions, is hard to fathom. But they did it, and it served Blais ultra-competitive memory and spirit so well.
On the Sunday evening, beers in hand, the squad exited the Big Sight area just in front of me. Most were silent, focused, maybe a bit lost amid the humidity, wanting to just get home. It was simultaneously a moving and impressive sight.
FEN has learned that Blais had been battling serious illness for several months before he died in mid-July. An immensely private man, no one in the team knew of his battle with such difficult circumstances.
“The family was able to share some things with us that we’ve shared with the team and it’s been really helpful for everybody, and it really helps us also see the full picture,” Citroen Racing’s Managing Director, Beth Paretta, told FEN at the London EPrix last month.
“Everybody knows a little part of somebody, so everybody might have thought they knew everything that’s going on in somebody’s life. And the reality is you don’t, right? None of us do.”
There’s a lot of compartmentalisation in motorsport, sometimes there has to be. Countless times in the past teams have had to re-group after tragedies and carry on. It has been thankfully very rare in Formula E. In 2015 Andretti had to do it to a degree after Justin Wilson’s unspeakably cruel death at Pocono.
Four years on the Nissan edams squad, at a similar time between seasons, had to do the same when Jean-Paul Driot succumbed to Leukaemia. But to do it a few days after such a bolt from the blue as Blais’ death was brave beyond measure for Citroen Racing and the MSG staffers.
For the first time since Blais’ death, Paretta, who joined the team as managing director with a view to attracting investors to MSG at the Berlin EPrix in May, spoke about the Tokyo EPrix and how the team coped.
“We have had great communication with the family. Their situation is just awful, and they have been magnificent in the face of unimaginable sorrow,” said Paretta.
“At the top level of professional racing, we compartmentalise very well and if you have a bad session in the morning, you’ve got to regroup and have a good next session.
“So, it’s certainly a developed skill that most pro racers and all successful pro racers have to have. The ability to shut things out and focus in the moment. And so that, in some ways, is not surprising because that’s something that we’re all good at, for better or for worse.”
Citroen’s collective reaction was very much for the better in Tokyo, as engineers Thibault Arnal and Fabien Geffroy gave an elegant tribute in front of the whole paddock.
It will have been unimaginably hard for Arnal and Geffroy to do it, but they did it with heart, grace and feeling so much, that those in attendance will never forget it.
Members from MSG, Stellantis, Formula E and the FIA attended Blais’ funeral in Lyon in early August.
“We were only work colleagues, to see how he is being missed by his family and friends was very painful,” one team member told FEN.
“But in every single speech that was held, it was noticeable, just how much Cyril had dedicated his life to racing: Family events had to be organised around his work schedule, he was a true inspiration to his younger family members, and his friends knew that his time was short due to his busy calendar. They were all so proud of him.
“I really felt happy that we attended the funeral what was such a private event. It showed that not only racing was important to Cyril, but that Cyril was also important to the world of racing. That all his dedication was not in vain.”
Pulling together for Cyril
“What is amazing is when we got the terrible news, we kept it for a couple of days before it went public in order to allow the team and the family some space,” recalled Paretta.
That was a fundamental key to the Tokyo EPrix and how communications and tributes were to be organised. Some members of the Citroen Racing team were actually testing at Guadix in Spain when they learned of Blais’ passing. With hosted media in tow, it was an incredibly stressful few days.
“I’ve been in this business a long time and I’ve never had this exact experience,” added Paretta.
“We were navigating it together and there was a sense of that from the first minute. We made all of our decisions with the team’s well-being and with a mind to the family’s protection. All of that was front and centre with every decision we made.
“So, when the decision was made of when we would be telling the series and the public because Tokyo was looming, it was only a few days away. I had to explain to the team that this is going to be uncomfortable.”
When the news of Blais death went public on the Monday before the Tokyo race, most of the Citroen personnel were travelling over to the race. A media blackout was prioritised for Nick Cassidy and Jean-Eric Vergne on the run up to the race, which was entirely appropriate.
“When the attentions on you, and you just want to be in your grieving phase and just gett back to work, the fact remains, we’re on television and this is a public thing that we do for a living,” says Paretta.
“I think it was such a confidence boost for the team to realise that just by sticking to the basics the results can come in racing.
“But certainly, we had everything thrown at us. And if you just go back to focussing on every session and getting the basics of every session and kind of simplifying things, because your capacity is limited, let’s simplify it and it earn results.
“I think it’s fair to say that in Tokyo, we were reeling. We were all reeling. But we were reeling also because there was a lot of unknowns.”
At the end of it all both Cassidy and Vergne gave the team something to celebrate in an otherwise desperate time. Their performances and those of the team will be used in future case studies of valour as special sporting and human moments.
