Franco Colapinto has revealed that Oliver Bearman left him on read after their high-speed collision at Suzuka, with the Alpine driver expressing unhappiness over the Haas racer’s public criticism of the incident.
Speaking to media in Miami ahead of the season resumption, Colapinto confirmed he messaged Bearman immediately after the crash but received no response. Bearman, who suffered a 50G impact after taking evasive action onto the grass and hitting the wall, had criticised Colapinto’s driving on the Up To Speed podcast, describing the Alpine driver’s movement as “unacceptable.”
Colapinto defends positioning ahead of crash
The collision occurred when Bearman encountered a rapid closing speed behind Colapinto’s Alpine. According to Bearman’s account on the podcast, Colapinto made a small leftward movement that, combined with the significant speed differences inherent in F1 2026’s new regulations, triggered the crash sequence.
Colapinto pushed back against that characterisation, emphasising that driver responsibility in such situations is shared.
“I think that the most important thing is that he was okay,” Colapinto said. “I’m not going to comment too much about it. I’m just going to say that after the race, I sent him straight away a message. He never responded. So he didn’t talk to me. I didn’t talk to him.”
The 22-year-old Argentine continued: “The thing I’m the most happy about is that he’s fine and nothing bad happened. Of course, a big damage for their team, but it’s part of racing.”
Speed differential concerns highlighted
Colapinto used the incident to raise broader safety concerns about the 2026 regulations, which have introduced dramatically different closing speeds between cars due to the new power unit formula and active aerodynamics.
“I think nowadays we need to understand much better how we can make racing safer and not take this amount of risk,” he explained. “I think when things like this happen, the guy that is behind has all the knowledge of the speed that he’s doing, of the amount of boost that he is using, of what he’s trying, and the person in front is much more blind.”
He added: “I think nowadays, with the closing speeds, you’re watching the mirror in one second, and the second after, the car has caught you 20 meters. So I do think that both have responsibility on it.”
Colapinto firmly denied any aggressive driving on his part: “I’m going to say that I never really moved aggressively at any point in that moment, or in that corner, which made him have the incident, or made him crash.”
He concluded with a conciliatory note: “I’m just glad that he’s okay. Of course, not happy with his comments, but hopefully we can fix it soon.”
FIA responds with boost mode restrictions
The FIA has introduced regulatory tweaks for Miami in response to safety concerns around the new power units. Boost mode will now be banned on safety grounds if the track is wet — a relevant measure given thunderstorms are forecast for Sunday’s race.
The Miami Grand Prix marks the resumption of the 2026 season after a five-week break caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian rounds. Track action begins Friday with FP1 scheduled for 1:30 PM local time.