British GP chaos: Oliver Bearman handed crushing penalty for reckless manoeuvre that endangered rivals at Silverstone
British Grand Prix stewards at Silverstone have given a heavy punishment to Oliver Bearman after the Haas driver span in the pit entry while under red flag conditions during practice
Oliver Bearman has been given a huge grid drop for the British Grand Prix. The Brit has no hope of starting his home race at Silverstone high up the grid after he was heavily penalised for failing to slow down for a red flag during final practice on Saturday.
Gabriel Bortoleto had caused the session to come to a halt by spinning his Sauber and breaking the front left wheel. That prompted everyone else to return safely to the pit lane, except Brit Bearman who lost control of his Haas.
He was haring into the pit entry at speed when the car span, hitting the barrier with his front wing and ripping it off. Max Verstappen, who was coming in behind, was left to dodge debris from the crash as he made his way back to the Red Bull garage.
The stewards took a dim view of Bearman’s actions, particularly the fact that he entered the pit entry at 161mph despite the red flags. As a result, he will serve a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race and has also had four points added to his racing licence, taking him up to eight in total.
Explaining their decision, the stewards wrote: “The session was red flagged at 12.33:57. Car 87 [Bearman] had slowed down for the red flag and, as he was approaching Turn 15, accelerated significantly to race pace and entered the pit entry road at 260kph. He lost control of the car in the pit entry road and crashed into the barriers.
Article 37.6 (a) of the Formula One Sporting Regulations and Article 2.5.4.1 (b) of Appendix H of the International Sporting Code require that when a red flag is shown ‘all cars must immediately reduce speed and proceed slowly back to the pit lane’.
“It is beyond doubt that the driver of Car 87 did not proceed slowly back to the pit lane when he accelerated to simulate entering into the pit entry road under race conditions. In fact, we looked at a previous in-lap under normal racing conditions and found that he was faster in this lap, under a red flag.
To make matters worse, he lost control of the car and crashed into the barriers while at speed. The driver informed us that he misjudged the fact that his brakes were not warm because the lap was done slowly, due to the red flag. While this may have been a factor contributing to the crash, we did not consider it to be a mitigating factor.”
The penalty is a blow to Bearman’s hopes of getting his points-scoring form back on track at his home race. He has not finished a Grand Prix in the top 10 since April’s Bahrain Grand Prix, though he was 11th at the end of the last two races in Canada and Austria. Bearman sits 18th in the drivers’ championship with six points.
He will take comfort, though, from the fact Haas’ race pace this season has tended to be much stronger than their efforts in qualifying. If he is to have any hope of a successful first Silverstone appearance in F1, he will need to gain plenty of places.
