Bianchi, 25, who died on Friday, had been fighting for his life under controlled medical conditions in the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire hospital in Nice, southern France.

He is the first Formula One driver to perish from a racing accident since triple world champion Ayrton Senna in San Marino in 1994.

Bianchi entered F1 as a test driver for Ferrari in 2011 before joining Force India the following season.

In 2013, the Frenchman made his debut for Marussia – finishing 15th at the Australian Grand Prix. He failed to win a point that season but managed a 13th-place finish at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Bianchi scored his and Marussia's first points in F1 at the Monaco Grand Prix the next season when he finished ninth, and he impressed so much so that he was tipped as a future Ferrari driver.

Bianchi's fateful accident happened when he lost control of his car during wet conditions at the Suzuka circuit and collided with a tractor crane that was removing Adrian Sutil's Sauber which had crashed a lap earlier.

The race was red flagged and ended nine laps early as medics attended to Bianchi, who was later taken to hospital and underwent surgery on a severe head injury. He remained in hospital in Japan before later being moved to France but failed to show any improvement in his condition.

Following Bianchi's accident, F1 chiefs launched an investigation and shifted the start times of five Grand Prix for this season so that no race would start with a risk of running in bad light.

The times for Australia (now 4pm), Malaysia (3pm), China (2pm), Japan (2pm) and Russia (2pm) are all one hour earlier than they were in 2014.