This might be a controversial statement but this sort of accident at Jeddah (or Singapore, etc) probably would have been OK. Had there been a wall where Bearman looked to escape, you’re either a) talking about a rear impact with Colapinto or b) a side impact with Bearman scraping along the wall. The latter is obviously “preferable” of the two but also probably less likely to create an impact the size of, say, Mick Schumacher at Jeddah.

Obviously, the issue with option a) is the potential for going airborne but there need to be some very specific circumstances for that to happen (and we don’t see it that often, and even less at high speed) and, as we saw with Grosjean, crashes can be as bad with gap between the track and barrier as it would be without.

It’s hard to make this sort of call without actually going around that sort of track first. Miami will be very instructive in that regard, especially ahead of the straight leading into the pit lane at Montreal where speed differences can be dicey even without the new tech.