{"id":582423,"date":"2026-04-03T07:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582423\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T07:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:40:13","slug":"stella-was-right-about-f1s-closing-speed-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582423\/","title":{"rendered":"Stella was right about F1’s closing speed problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ollie Bearman<\/a>‘s crash at the Japanese Grand Prix had not come as a surprise to many of Formula 1’s paddock figures, and the drivers were largely united in their suggestions that a similar scenario was always bound to happen with the new cars.<\/p>\n

The difference in the closing speeds of Bearman and Franco Colapinto<\/a> into Suzuka’s Spoon Curve had precipitated the incident, in which Bearman sustained a heavy shunt. Although visibly hobbling as he walked away from his car, Bearman was lucky not to sustain any injuries beyond a bruise on his right knee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Colapinto had endured his own near-miss when he narrowly evaded Liam Lawson’s bogged-down Racing Bulls<\/a> car off the line at Melbourne. While most of the drivers had been unhappy with the difference in speeds at the start, particularly after Melbourne, a handful of them had offered some degree of warning about the prospect of encountering cars with more speed and with the straight mode active.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz<\/a> labelled this as a “sketchy” situation after Melbourne, but it seemed that the FIA had decreed that it was happy with the regulations in racing trim. With the starts seemingly ‘fixed’ with the addition of the five-second hold period, fixing qualifying sat at the top of its priority list.<\/p>\n

Yet, Bearman’s accident rather demonstrated the problems that can arise when two drivers are on the same part of the circuit with wildly different speeds. A 28mph difference between Bearman and Colapinto caught both drivers off-guard; Colapinto was taking his normal line, while Bearman approached the Alpine<\/a> so quickly that there was nowhere for him to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although it sounds morbid to say, the Briton’s crash might have been the best scenario possible for F1; it exposed a key flaw that requires immediate attention, and in a way where nobody was seriously hurt. Yet, it was also entirely avoidable.<\/p>\n

As long ago as the first week of Bahrain testing, McLaren<\/a> boss Andrea Stella mentioned that the difference in closing speeds could be a problem. Here’s what Stella said in Bahrain, which would later become incredibly prescient.<\/p>\n

\"Webber <\/p>\n

Webber hit Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus at great speed in 2010’s Valencia race, flipping into the air<\/p>\n

Photo by: Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

“We have also identified the overtaking as another point of attention and the fact that there could be cars that follow another car and the car ahead may want to lift to harvest,” Stella began, following the first week of testing at Sakhir.\u00a0“This may not be an ideal situation when you follow closely, and this can give a race situation like we have seen before a few times: [Mark] Webber in Valencia [2010], [Riccardo] Patrese in Portugal [1992] and there are a few more that definitely we don’t want to see anymore in Formula 1.”<\/p>\n

Following Bearman’s crash, Stella reiterated his feelings and his displeasure that the championship’s governance hadn’t taken a proactive stance to earlier discussions in technical advisory committee meetings.<\/p>\n

That said, Stella believes that there might not be a single silver bullet to avoiding situations where two cars are sharing the same piece of track at vastly different speeds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the situation is this: each team may wish to deploy energy at different areas on the track and, since Suzuka had three key deployment areas – the run to Spoon, the run to 130R, and the run to Turn 1 – each outfit effectively had to select one of the three to dump their battery energy. This led to the discrepancies in speed between cars; Bearman was using his boost button on the run to Spoon for the instant hit of 350kW – Colapinto was not.<\/p>\n

“This should jump at the top of the agenda. It is difficult for me to say we should do this in a simple way, because it may be a combination of things that are required” Andrea Stella<\/p>\n

Raising the super clip limit from 250kW to 350kW might be one solution, as it cuts the amount of lift-and-coast needed to restore energy. Regenerating energy at a higher rate would condense the time spent running at lower speeds at the end of straights, but ultimately it would do little to cover the Bearman\/Colapinto incident as the Argentine was still running at full throttle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When it comes to the incident that involved Oliver, I think this situation, when you know that the closing speed can be as big as can happen with a car lifting or being in a super clip and the other cars having deployment, is not a surprise. We said that already in testing,” Stella explained.<\/p>\n

“It is in the agenda of the FIA in terms of the aspects of these 2026 regulations that should be improved. We don’t want to wait for things to happen to put actions in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Bearman's <\/p>\n

Bearman’s Haas car after his Suzuka crash<\/p>\n

Photo by: Kym Illman \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

“[In the race], something happened. I think Oliver, luckily, he seemed like he got out of it with just some bruises, but nothing too major. We have a responsibility to put in place the actions that, especially from a safety point of view, should be implemented.<\/p>\n

“We have to look at the data. Teams should share information in terms of what was going on with Colapinto’s car and Oliver’s car. In general, the reason of adding a 350kW super clip is that we would like to avoid drivers having to do a lift and coast, because if there’s a lift and coast, there’s an even bigger speed differential with the car that is following.<\/p>\n

“It’s a case that should be studied with a certain level of analytical approach. I don’t think a simple solution exists, but we have the expertise, the engineers, there’s the variables to put in place some actions, and I think this will be something that will be looked at in the meetings that will happen during the break between FIA, the teams and F1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Like I said before, this should jump at the top of the agenda. It is difficult for me to say we should do this in a simple way, because like I said, it may be a combination of things that are required, and not a simple one.”<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

So, what could the solutions – beyond changing the super clip parameters – include? Stella has suggested that giving the teams more freedom to determine how they deploy around a lap can help mitigate the battery energy spent elsewhere at less deployment-sensitive areas.<\/p>\n

There’s also a case to be made for dropping the electrical power output to 250kW, which would yield a drop in overall speeds but would also significantly reduce the rate at which battery energy is consumed. As such, teams might be able to deploy more evenly across a circuit assuming the maximum recharge rate remains at 350kW, smoothing out the speed deltas across the circuit.<\/p>\n

The impromptu spring break is a bit of fortune for F1 and its governance, as it can process the opening three rounds and attempt to implement any changes to the more glaring issues in the 2026 regulations. Ensuring that the potential solutions don’t become politicised will be another hurdle to overcome.<\/p>\n

\"Stella <\/p>\n

Stella issued a warning about F1’s closing-speed issue back in February<\/p>\n

Photo by: Kym Illman \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ollie Bearman‘s crash at the Japanese Grand Prix had not come as a surprise to many of Formula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,107978,85,285285,73217],"class_list":{"0":"post-582423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-japanese-gp","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-stella-was-right-about-f1s-closing-speed-problem-but-heres-why-theres-no-simple-fix","16":"tag-suzuka"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}