Oliver Bearman criticised Franco Colapinto’s driving after he crashed at high speed during today’s Japanese Grand Prix.

The Haas driver left the track at 308kph when he suddenly caught Colapinto’s Alpine approaching Spoon curve. Bearman said the difference in speed between the two cars at the time was “massive”, at around 50kph.

After being checked in the Medical Centre, where he was found to have bruising to his right knee but no broken bones, Bearman said he felt “absolutely fine”, though it had been a “scary moment.”

“The car is a bit worse for wear, but we have a month now to reset and come back,” said Bearman. “I can only apologise from the bottom of my heart to the team for that because it’s a lot of work for them.”

Colapinto was moving from the right-hand side of the track to the left, following the racing line, as Bearman caught him. Bearman said his rival should have had more regard for the difference in speed between the two cars and changed his line.

“It was a massive overspeed, 50 kph, which is a part of these new regulations that I guess we have to get used to,” said Bearman. “But also I felt like I wasn’t really given much space, given the huge excess speed that I was carrying.”

The stewards noted the incident between the two drivers but decided no investigation was necessary.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and

Colapinto said he was relieved to see Bearman escape serious injury in his crash. “I saw him spinning on the grass and then I knew it was very hard hit, so I’m happy he’s okay,” said the Alpine driver.

The drivers discussed the potential dangers between themselves and the FIA before the race.

“It’s something that we spoke about on Friday with the other drivers and the stewards that we need to be a bit more lenient, a bit prepared because of these huge deltas in speed,” said Bearman. “We’ve, as a group, warned the FIA what can happen and this has been a really unfortunate result of a massive delta speed that we’ve never seen before in F1 until these new regulations.”

Carlos Sainz Jnr, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers Association, called on the FIA to make rules changes to address the danger caused by difference in speeds before the next round of the championship in five weeks’ time.

Miss nothing from RaceFans

Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:

2026 Japanese Grand Prix

Browse all 2026 Japanese Grand Prix articles

Published by

Keith Collantine

Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 – when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring journalist, Keith began running the site full-time in 2010, achieving a long-held ambition to dedicate his full attention to his passion for motor racing. View all posts by Keith Collantine