The big scare
The most important news is that Ollie Bearman is fine – as he himself confirmed a few days ago – and that he will be regularly on track at the beginning of May for the Miami GP. The terrible accident he was involved in at Suzuka, in which he had to ‘dodge’ Franco Colapinto’s car that was moving much more slowly ahead of him, is still being discussed. That misunderstanding, caused by two cars that were in opposite phases of battery usage and found themselves one behind the other with a speed difference of about 50 km/h, highlighted in one blow all the potential danger of the current technical regulations.
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In an interview given to the Up To Speed podcast, however, Bearman decided to also point the finger at Colapinto, who in his opinion, by making a slight move to the left to close the space where the Haas driver seemed to want to slip in, had a significant shared responsibility in the accident. In particular, the young English talent raised in the FDA complained because with his behavior Colapinto would have broken a kind of gentleman agreement that the drivers had made the Friday before the race.
Colapinto unacceptable
“Franco moved in front of me to defend his position. Last year it would have been borderline, but probably acceptable with a speed difference of only 5 or 10 km/h. But with 50 km/h [difference] he didn’t leave me enough space and I had to avoid a much more serious accident – Bearman said – when he moved to the left he made a small movement, but with that speed difference any maneuver becomes huge. So I was lucky not to hit him. It would have been much worse if I had“.
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“We had talked about it on Friday and that makes it even more frustrating – Bearman thundered, continuing his interview – we had told each other among all the drivers: ‘We need to have a bit more mutual respect. Try to defend your position a little earlier, because now with this regulation the speed differences are much greater than they have ever been in our sport’. And then two days later what happened happened: this is unacceptable to me. We need to find a solution among the drivers, have a bit more mutual respect, because I was not at all happy with his gesture“, concluded the Haas representative.
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