This weekend’s British Grand Prix is the first home race for Oliver Bearman as a Formula 1 driver.
But it is not getting off to the best of starts for him.
Bearman was given a ten-place grid penalty, as well as four points on his FIA Super License, for an incident near the end of FP3 on Saturday at Silverstone. Debris on the track brought out the red flag, which requires all drivers to slow down and proceed to pit lane. Bearman did reduce speed after the red flag came out, but then as he approached pit lane he suddenly accelerated, and crashed on the entry into the pits:
Ollie Bearman clatters into the barriers on the pit entry
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Bearman reported over the radio that his brakes had cooled due to slowing down when the red flag was shown, but the race stewards were not satisfied with this explanation. Bearman was summoned to meet with officials following FP3, and while the stewards found that that might have been a “factor contributing to the crash,” they did not find it to be a “mitigating” factor when rendering their decision:
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.
This is now the second ten-place grid drop Bearman has received this season for an incident under red flag conditions. At the Monaco Grand Prix in May, the Haas driver was given a ten-place grid drop for an incident in FP2, when he passed Carlos Sainz Jr. after a shunt from Oscar Piastri brought out the red flag.
Bearman was also given two penalty points for that incident. The four penalty points he was given today bring his total to eight, four points shy of a one-race suspension.
