Ollie Bearman was taken to the FIA medical centre after a “scary” 190mph crash at the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday.
The British 20-year-old, in his second season in F1, lost control at ‘Spoon’ corner at Suzuka as he chased down Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.
With high closing speeds, Bearman took evasive action and lost control of his Haas car, spinning off the circuit and smashing into the tyre wall - a crash measured at 50G.
Here’s the moment Bearman went into the barriers at Spoon #F1 #JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/XmurXApWkp
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 29, 2026
Bearman emerged from his cockpit limping and needed assistance from trackside marshals. The Chelmsford-born driver was taken to the track’s medical centre and cleared.
Around 20 minutes after the crash, Haas released an update: “50G impact. Ollie has had an X-ray at the medical centre. No fractures, a right knee contusion following the impact.”
Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu, speaking to Sky Sports, described the incident as “scary.”
The crash resulted in a safety car, which aided pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli, who managed to gain places via a cheap pit-stop and convert a second consecutive race win.
Carlos Sainz, who finished 15th for Williams, was critical of the sport’s regulations after seeing Bearman’s crash and urged F1 and the FIA to make changes ahead of the next round in Miami at the start of May.
“With the accident with Ollie, we’ve been warning them with these closing speeds that this was going to happen,” he said. “Hopefully, we come up with a better solution with these massive closing speeds and a better way of racing.
“I was so surprised when they said we would sort out qualifying and leave racing alone because it’s exciting. We’ve been very vocal, we’ve been warning that this kind of accident was going to happen.
Here, we’re lucky there was an escape road - imagine Baku or Vegas. We’ve warned the FIA that these accidents will happen a lot with these regulations, 50G is higher than my crash in Russia in 2016, which was 46G.
“I hope it serves as one example, if they listen to teams and drivers... the racing is clearly not OK.”
