Heading into the 2025 F1 Azerbaijan GP weekend, Haas’ Ollie Bearman reflected on his Monza penalty and acknowledged the looming threat of a potential race-ban coming his way. The 20 year-old endured a tough Italian GP, where a 10-second time penalty for an incident with Carlos Sainz proved costly as he crossed the line to finish the race in P12.
From now until Mexico, the Briton will be forced to take measured risks, as just two more penalty points would automatically trigger a race-ban. Ahead of the weekend, Bearman shared some of his thoughts on the penalty and discussed his decision to take a more cautious approach to racing his competitors during this particularly risky period.
Bearman felt “hard done by” after Monza penalty
Bearman admitted that the penalty was a tough pill to swallow in his F1 Azerbaijan GP print media session. He stressed that, from his perspective, he believed he’d remained fully in control and was simply racing hard for on-track position with Sainz. Nonetheless, the Briton accepted that “rules are the rules”, even if he’d felt slightly hard done by, especially in this instance.
“Yeah, I mean, the rules are the rules. I think as a racing driver and as a fan as well maybe, it’s tough to take that penalty because from my side at no point I was out of control. I was totally just racing to the corner with another driver and then I didn’t get left any space at all. At the end, that’s what the rules state. So I do feel a little hard done by, yeah.”
The 20 year-old accepted responsibility for the penalty. Noting that while the rules are clear, it was a difficult for him to wrap his head around the decision made by the stewards given how he and many drivers have traditionally raced.
“Yeah, I mean, I guess now if I’m on the outside I’ll just go for it, no? No, that’s how the rules are and it’s my fault for getting the penalty regardless of if we agree with the rules or not. But it’s a tough one to take. That’s not how any of us have grown up racing, really.”
Rationale behind the move
In recent rounds, Bearman’s situation in Monza wasn’t the first controversial penalty with drivers feeling hard done by. Most recently, Sainz’s 10-second time penalty for his incident with Liam Lawson in Zandvoort sparked widespread discussion. However, luckily for the Spaniard, officials overturned the decision earlier this week.
The Briton explained the challenge of defending a corner when another driver is alongside him. He further emphasised that it wasn’t a matter of being consistently slower than Sainz, but rather making a split-second decision to fight for the position. Adding to that, he noted that successfully holding the racing line could’ve allowed him to maintain his place for the remainder of the race.
“You can’t, you can’t, imagine you’re going into the corner, you have a guy alongside you. You are deciding, ok I’m going to fight for this corner because, you know, in my situation he was a bit faster than me. But it wasn’t like he was catching me one second a lap, if I could’ve stayed in front of him in that corner, I would’ve been able to stay in front until the end of the race.”
Elaborating on the move that resulted in a penalty, Bearman added: “So, I had every intention to fight for the move. And in that split second where you brake and you see how fast you’re entering the corner with respect to your competitor, you don’t then think about the three-page guideline they sent you in January. It’s not possible. So you race to the corner like you know how, like you’ve been brought up doing. In my situation I expected a bit more space, but that’s how it went.”
Weighs in on Sainz’s Zandvoort penalty
When asked for his thoughts on the stewards’ decision to overturn Sainz’s penalty, Bearman expressed his support for the Spaniard.
The 20 year-old said: “I think it’s correct that they took away that penalty and those penalty points and I don’t think it should come to that. I think it was quite clear from the outside looking at what happened, of course they want to get the decision made as soon as possible.”
Although he believed the stewards made the right the decision, Bearman suggested that drivers’ involvement when dishing out penalties could lead to fairer outcomes. While he noted that every on-track battle is unique and hard to standardise, he acknowledged the difficulty in creating guidelines.
“But with a lot of these cases, if they discussed with us as drivers, I think there would be an answer. We would all agree on what should be a penalty, what shouldn’t be a penalty. It’s tough to make guidelines because every situation is unique, so it’s tough to conform to them.”
Ollie Bearman says race-ban threat will affect his racing approach ahead of F1 Azerbaijan GP
“Yeah, it’s a shame. I guess I’ll just go around the outside now,” Bearman joked.
The Briton reflected on the accumulation of his penalty points. While he acknowledged that he deserved the penalty points he received in Silverstone, he admitted he felt several incidents where he received penalties was harsh, given his efforts to avoid danger.
“Of course. It’s a shame that I ended up at that point, of course. I earned some for good reason.I did a very dangerous mistake in Silverstone, but I also have six from things kind of… I got two from Monza, I got two from Monaco in the red flag, which I really felt like I did the maximum to avoid a dangerous situation there and I got four penalty points for that. So it’s a shame that I end up with this many.
“Of course, the four that I earned in Silverstone, I deserve and I took that on the chin and learned from it. But now I’m going to be making it to when I lose my two from Brazil, basically.”
On a track like Baku and Singapore which poses the challenges of a tight street circuit, Bearman knows he’ll have to hold back from executing any risky overtakes moving forwards until some of his penalty points expire.
“Yeah, I don’t have a choice. I mean, I would hope to get given space on the inside, but clearly there’s a possibility that that won’t happen, so I can’t take that risk.”
