At the F1 Dutch GP, Ollie Bearman came from a pit lane start to finish P6. He brought home 8 valuable points for Haas.
Bearman had to start from the pit lane due to taking a new power unit after a disappointing qualifying session where he finished 19th.
He started the race on hard tyres and went for a very long initial stint. Unlike the majority of the field, he opted not to pit under the first safety car. This helped him to gain track position over some of the other drivers.
His long first stint also allowed the Haas driver to complete a one-stop strategy. Bearman’s teammate Esteban Ocon was the only other driver to do so. After changing to medium tyres on Lap 53, he was able to pass Bortoleto, Alonso and Gasly after that restart to move into P8. He took advantage of Norris’ problems and Antonelli’s penalties to take P6. Ocon finished not far behind in P10. The two drivers brought home some valuable points for the American team.
Safety car restarts
During the race, Bearman had to navigate three separate safety car restarts. During the first of these, he was on much older tyres than those around him. Speaking post-race, he spoke about how challenging this was.
“The most difficult thing was restarting those tyres after every safety car. Because when the tread gets thinner, it’s really difficult to retain temperature in those tyres.”
Bearman was able to get a fresh set of tyres after Leclerc caused another safety car. This made it a lot easier for him on this restart.
“When that safety car came out and I had those fresh tyres, I was happy. But then I flat-spotted them straight away in Turn 1.”
Tyre management
Pulling off a one-stop strategy at Zandvoort is not an easy feat. To do so, you need to be very careful in managing your tyres. This was made even harder for Ollie Bearman, who had to spend his first stint in a DRS train behind Bortoleto, and then his teammate before the second stoppage of the race.
“I spent the entire stint length in DRS. First it was Bortoleto, then Esteban. You know it’s good to be in the DRS, but also it destroys your tyres, particularly the fronts.
“So I was really holding on for dear life at the end, but we worked it out.”
After getting his fresh set of tyres on Lap 53, there wasn’t much relief for Bearman as he flat-spotted his tyres at Turn 1.
“I was put on the crest, which is kind of an annoying thing about this track. There’s a crest halfway down the straight. So if you brake on that, what happened to me was that my tyre got flat-spotted. So for the last few laps, I was really holding on with a bit of vibrations from that tyre.”
