Williams driver Carlos Sainz has said that Oliver Bearman’s enormous crash during Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix was an accident waiting to happen, and has urged Formula 1 and governing body the FIA to take action.
Bearman’s Haas struck the barriers at Spoon corner at a force of 50G after coming up rapidly behind Franco Colapinto’s Alpine. As the Haas swerved left to avoid a collision, it went onto the grass and clipped a marker board, with the 20-year-old losing control at 308kph. The safety car was then brought out at a crucial point in the race.
Haas confirmed that Bearman, who was seen limping as he climbed out of the car, had not broken any bones but had bruised his right knee in the impact.
“He had a massive speed advantage over the car in front and had to take avoiding action. He went onto the grass and crashed. It was frightening,” said Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu.
Such large differences in speed between cars have been linked to the sport’s new engine rules, which require drivers to manage a greater electrical component. Sainz, who sits on the board of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, said drivers had long feared this sort of incident.
“We’ve been warning them that this would happen,” he said. “I’m not happy with how things have been handled so far. Hopefully we can find a better solution that removes these huge speed differences and makes racing safer. Here we were lucky there was a run-off area. But imagine if this happened in Baku, Singapore or Las Vegas, right next to the walls.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff agreed the sport needed to look into the matter urgently, saying the current regulations were still immature and that both the FIA and the teams would be studying the crash carefully to work out how to prevent something similar happening again.
