The Japanese Grand Prix ended under a cloud of concern rather than celebration, as the paddock digested the violent accident involving Ollie Bearman in the early stages of the Suzuka race.
The incident, triggered by the extreme closing speeds created by the 2026 power unit regulations, reignited a debate that drivers have been warning about since the concept phase of the new hybrid era.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri all addressed the crash in the post‑race media session, each offering a slightly different angle but converging on the same conclusion: the sport must act quickly.
A known risk becomes reality
The 2026 regulations—designed around drastically reduced internal combustion power and significantly increased electrical deployment—have created unprecedented speed deltas on straights.
When a car enters “super‑clipping,” the state in which battery deployment is exhausted, it can lose more than 30 km/h relative to a car behind still harvesting or deploying efficiently. At Suzuka, that difference proved catastrophic.
Antonelli pointed to the underlying issue: “I didn’t properly see what happened… but yeah, this is a big thing for sure. The FIA is already looking into how to improve for Miami, both in qualifying and race. It’s very tricky, to be fair.”
The 19‑year‑old has been one of the most vocal drivers about the unpredictability of energy states in wheel‑to‑wheel combat. His comments reflected a paddock consensus: the problem is structural, not situational.
Leclerc: “We need to race differently with these cars”
Charles Leclerc, who has generally embraced the new regulations for their raceability, acknowledged that Bearman’s crash exposed a blind spot in driver behaviour and defensive norms.
“With these cars, surely we need to race differently and there’s no doubt about that.”
He pointed specifically to the danger of moving under braking or changing direction when a car behind is in a different energy state: “One of the points was moving or changing direction whenever you are super‑clipping, and that’s what creates some quite dangerous scenarios.”
Leclerc, however, pushed back against the idea that the entire racing product needs to be rewritten: “Whether we need to change absolutely everything for the race, I don’t know… I actually enjoy these cars for the racing bit.”
But he did concede that qualifying remains problematic: “For qualifying there are definitely tweaks we need to make in order for us to push those cars to the limit and not think too much about the energy.”
And he admitted that even experienced drivers are still adjusting: “In Australia there were some pretty tricky moments with George [Russell]. It will get better with time, but surely it’s tricky.”
Piastri: “We’ve spoken about this since these cars were conceptualised”
Oscar Piastri was the most blunt of the trio, noting that the Bearman‑Colapinto crash was not an unpredictable anomaly but a scenario the drivers had been warning about for years.
“We’ve spoken about that being a possibility since these cars were conceptualised. It’s what we’re stuck with, with the power units. There’s no easy way of getting around it.”
What alarmed Piastri most was that Colapinto’s car did not appear to be in super‑clipping at all: “From what I saw there was no flashing light from Colapinto, so I don’t even think he was super‑clipping either, which is obviously a bit of a concern.”
He also revealed he had his own near‑miss earlier in the weekend: “I had a pretty close call in free practice with Nico [Hulkenberg] because he caught me about three times as quick as I expected on the straight, and we were both at full throttle.”
That detail underscores the core issue: even two cars at maximum power can experience wildly different acceleration profiles depending on battery state, harvesting strategy and corner‑exit deployment.
Piastri concluded with a sobering assessment: “Whilst we’re learning that, unfortunately things like this are probably going to happen… There’s a lot of things we need to tweak, a lot of things we need to change, and especially on safety grounds, yes, there’s some things that need to be looked into pretty quickly.”
