Trying to find the right words to pay tribute to Jules Bianchi has not been easy. It just doesn't feel right to be writing in the past tense about a man who was so vital, so full of potential, and so heart-breakingly young.
I remember the first time we met. It was during the 2010 season, and I was still trying to figure out the paddock's many unwritten rules. At lunch one day I wandered into Ferrari, where I was pretty sure they were still serving pasta, but when I got there only one empty seat remained in the motorhome, at a table occupied by a group of people wearing VIP passes and chattering away in French.
Not yet aware that media and VIPs were to be kept separately at all times, I asked the group if I could take the empty seat, and the man I later discovered was Jules welcomed me to the table and put me out of my obvious discomfort by being the charming and friendly man the world later knew him to be.
Fast-forward a few years, and into my first one-on-one with him, and Jules remembered me from that lunch. Because that's the sort of person he was: friendly, genuine, nice. Whatever competitive mists came down when he was in the cockpit, off-duty Jules was helpful and amenable, always with a smile.
One series of features I was writing required that I take photos of the subject with my mobile phone for a candid image to use. Most of the drivers hated the assignment, and made sure I knew it. Jules, on the other hand, enjoyed the ridiculousness of being papped at close quarters with a mobile in an environment heaving with professional photographers and long lenses, and really got into the spirit of things.
As his close friends and family gather in Nice today to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Jules Bianchi, what I will remember is a man for whom being in the spirit of things was a default mode, a man who never settled but made the most of everything, a man whose too-short life was lived well: with passion, adventure, and enthusiasm.
#ForzaJules