Bearman avoids fractures in 50G crash at Suzuka

Oliver Bearman has been cleared of any fractures after suffering a 50G crash in the Japanese Grand Prix.

The Haas driver was fighting with Franco Colapinto and had a significant closing speed of around 28 mph on the run to Spoon curve, with Colapinto in the middle of the circuit on the racing line. Bearman reacted by going to the left of the Alpine but as the track sweeps right he ran out of road and onto the grass, and he was a passenger from then on.

Bearman slid sideways across the apex of the first part of Spoon at high speed and hit the barrier side-on, registering an impact of 50G according to the team.

The British driver was able to climb out of the car unaided but then was seen limping away from the accident and needing help to return to the nedical car. Haas later confirmed that Bearman had an x-ray at the medical center that showed no fractures, and only “a right knee contusion” following the impact.

Team principal Ayao Komatsu laid no blame at Colapinto’s door for the crash, saying it was solely down to the speed differential between the two cars.

“Leading up to that Turn 13 Colapinto was always doing something consistent,” Komatsu said. “It's not his fault at all, but it's just that we are deploying more through there. So even on normal laps, we had a 20kph advantage. That's why he wanted to go for that and he used the boost button, but then that meant speed delta is 50kph.

“I'm sure you guys saw on the onboard, the closing speed was massive and he just misjudged it. So it’s one of the things I think we talked about with this regulation, closing speed could become an issue. So unfortunately that was one of those incidents.

“Of course he's kicking himself. He's saying, ‘I should have done better. No excuse.’ But you look at it, that 50 kph difference in closing speed is massive. So it's a lesson. So I'm sure we will talk about it in terms of the future, how we can improve.

“I'm just glad that he didn't have a big injury. He hit his knee hard, but he’s OK.

“Error is a bit of a strong word, to be honest. You could say small misjudgment, but it's scary, that closing speed. When I look on the GPS of the lap before, it's totally understandable and the correct decision to go for it there, but it's just huge.
“Then this is only the third race in this regulation, so that's something he never experienced. So I didn't even call it error, it's just something I think we should be aware as the F1 community and maybe see what we can improve to mitigate that because it could have been a lot worse, right? So I'm really glad that he didn't break anything and his knee's a bit sore, but it's nothing bad.”

The crash ended a run of point-scoring results for Bearman, who had started the Suzuka weekend fifth in the drivers’ championship after scoring in both of the first two races and the Sprint in China.