Oliver Bearman explains 'painful feeling' of lost 'balls to the wall'

Oliver Bearman has bemoaned losing "balls to the wall" corners at Suzuka, with energy management creating a "painful" new reality.

Whilst racing at the Japanese Grand Prix could be improved by F1's new regulations, the need to super clip and lift and coast has rendered the driver-favourite circuit a shell of its former self over one lap.

Known as a considerable challenge due to its flowing, high-speed nature, the requirement to harvest power has significantly reduced speeds through some of the quicker, more demanding turns and at the end of straights.

This was illustrated by footage of Max Verstappen losing around 50kph heading through 130R because of super clipping.

To mitigate the issue of energy management at Suzuka, the FIA has cut the energy recharge limit from 9.0 megajoules (MJ) in qualifying to 8.0 MJ.

However, Bearman was not convinced by the move when speaking on media day and highlighted the reality of the situation following FP2.

"Yeah, it's tough, particularly the amount of clipping that we're doing," the Haas driver said. "The step is probably a bit better with less energy recovery in qualifying, but still, you slow down a lot at the end of the straight, and that's always a painful feeling.

"Some of those corners, which before were balls to the wall, are not the case anymore, but that's what we're having to get used to.

"And still, I think there's still a skill in getting everything out of it. So, yeah, it's okay. It's a new reality, but it's still fun to drive on a track like this."

Using a 'special regulation'

The first sector has been particularly affected by the new F1 rules, with noticeable amounts of lift and coast being used to save energy for later in the lap.

But Bearman did point out how using solely traditional power through that section avoids the problem.

"It's still nice," the 20-year-old said. "There's a bit of a special regulation for some sections of track where you're allowed to basically not deploy the MGU-K, so just working on the ICE [internal combustion engine], if you want.

"And that means that, for us as drivers, things are a bit more normal — we don't have to do any weird stuff, which is nice.

"But yeah, it still is a bit less power than what we've been used to in the past."