Oscar Piastri spots unseen concern from monster F1 accident

Oscar Piastri has spotted an overlooked concern about Franco Colapinto's Alpine car just prior to Oliver Bearman's 50G crash in Japan. 

On the run to Spoon curve, Bearman was caught out by a 30mph closing speed on the Argentine's car, which was harvesting energy. 

However, when a car goes into harvesting mode, and on-board replay footage from Bearman's car before the Briton slammed into the barrier showed the rear lights were not blinking, indicating energy harvesting.

Recalling his own close call at Suzuka, Piastri explained how it was "a concern" that no lights had shown on Colapinto's car.

"We’ve spoken about that being a possibility since these cars were conceptualised, and it’s what we’re stuck with, with the power units," Piastri told media, including RacingNews365, of the closing speeds involved in the accident.

"There’s no easy way of getting around it. 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.

"I had a pretty close call in free practice with Nico [Hulkenberg] because he caught me about three times as quickly as I expected on the straight, and we were both at full throttle. 

"So, I think there’s clearly an element of learning for us as drivers, and where the accident happened, it’s not a place where you expect someone to come from so far behind and have such a big speed difference.

"And whilst we’re learning that, unfortunately, things like this are probably going to happen, which is a shame. But, you know, I think we understand as a sport there are a lot of things we need to tweak, a lot of things we need to change, and especially on safety grounds, yes, there are some things that need to be looked into pretty quickly."