Haas driver Oliver Bearman called his high-speed crash at Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix “a scary moment,” an incident that has reignited calls for Formula One regulators to review safety under the sport’s new rules.
The U.S.-owned team said Bearman’s car struck the barriers at 50 G at Spoon Curve after approaching Franco Colapinto’s Alpine with a 50-kilometer-per-hour speed difference.
Swerving left to avoid contact, the 20-year-old lost control at 308 kph, sending his car onto the grass and through a marker board, prompting the deployment of the safety car at a critical stage of the race.
“I’m absolutely fine,” Bearman said. He was seen limping away from his crashed car but escaped without broken bones and suffered only a right knee contusion.
“It was a scary moment out there, but everything is okay, which is the main thing.”
Formula One introduced sweeping new rules this season, with the hybrid power units in the cars now split roughly 50-50 between electric and combustion power.
The change introduced an element of energy management to racing, with teams balancing the deployment of electrical power and harvesting energy to recharge the power unit’s batteries.
Different teams are deploying and harvesting energy at different parts of the track, creating speed differentials between individual cars.
Haas boss Ayao Komatsu said Bearman, aware his car was faster than Colapinto’s in that section, was setting up an overtaking move and hit the boost button to call on additional power.
“Caught out by the closing speed, he misjudged the pass,” Komatsu added.
Williams driver and Grand Prix Drivers’ Association director Carlos Sainz said drivers had warned regulators about the potential for disaster.
“We’ve been warning them about this happening. This kind of closing speeds and this kind of accidents were always going to happen,” Sainz said. “I’m not very happy with what we’ve had up until now.
“Hopefully we come up with a better solution that doesn’t create these massive closing speeds and produces a safer way of racing. Here we were lucky there was an escape road. Now imagine going to Baku, Singapore, or Vegas street circuits and having this kind of closing speeds and crashes next to the walls.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff agreed the sport needed to take a closer look.
“The regulations are at a very immature stage, and the FIA and the teams are going to analyze the accident very carefully to see how we can avoid these things,” the Austrian said.
Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, said in a statement that the new rules would be assessed and any need for changes determined over a series of meetings in April, as already planned.
“At this stage, any speculation regarding the nature of potential changes would be premature,” the FIA said.
Safety will always “remain a core element of the FIA’s mission,” it added.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said addressing safety concerns should be a top priority at the planned meetings.
“We have a responsibility to put in place the actions that, especially from a safety point of view, should be implemented,” the Italian said.
