Ollie Bearman never looked comfortable driving for the first time on the Las Vegas Strip. Struggling for grip right from the first practice session, the Haas rookie dubbed the high-speed track dangerous. What further made his job difficult were the tyre graining issues with his Haas. While those issues never saw Bearman get comfortable during the F1 Las Vegas GP weekend, the Briton was left in awe of what his F2 teammate Kimi Antonelli pulled off on Sunday.
Bearman lists issues that spoiled his scintillating start to F1 Las Vegas GP
The poor run in the practice sessions carried over to qualifying on Saturday. Bearman only managed to put himself in P14 on the starting grid. However, he had the best launch from the start and made seven places to find himself in P7. Liam Lawson taking damage on the second lap helped as well.
Speaking after the race, Bearman listed a number of reasons why he couldn’t hold on to the position. Among those was the clear lack of pace to defend against the likes of Charles Leclerc, Nico Hülkenberg and Lewis Hamilton. Another one was the poor car set-up that took away the grip from the front tyres.
“I think we just missed out on a bit of pace today,” Bearman said during his post-Las Vegas GP F1 print media interaction. “Lap 1 was very good and I managed to muscle my way up into 7th after Lawson’s damage. We were looking to be in a good spot, just didn’t quite have the pace. Particularly on the first stint, I was really, really struggling with the balance.
“The low speed was really all over the place and it was too easy to do mistakes when I had all that pressure from behind. I just couldn’t lean on the car, couldn’t find confidence with it and also it kind of clouded my view of the balance for the second stint. So I didn’t do the right call on aero balance for the second stint and then I had a bit of front graining at the end.”
After a bad experience with the soft compound tyres in qualifying, Bearman decided to start the race on mediums. After 17 laps, he pitted for hard tyres that lasted until the end of the race, but with graining issues. Teammate Esteban Ocon passed him in that stint.
Bearman rues lack of experience on dry Las Vegas track, lauds Antonelli’s grit
With the race weekend affected by rain, Bearman did not get much preparation to race in dry conditions. He rued that lack of experience for his inability to gauge conditions and hold on to P7. Yet, he admitted that he preferred dry conditions over wet on the Las Vegas track.
“It was better in the dry. Also, I didn’t really get to do many dry laps, so those laps in the beginning of the race were definitely exploratory for me as well. That was definitely another challenge. It’s a tough track with a low overall grip level, even if it’s dry. The lack of dry running is also a bit damaging to someone with my lack of experience on a circuit like this,” Bearman admitted.
Hard tyres easier to manage?
When asked if he found the hard tyres easier to manage, given that Antonelli pitted on just the second lap and ran the rest of his race on hard tyres, Bearman admitted it was a feat he did not expect.
However, the set-up on his car made it incredibly tough to drive the VF-25.
“I was not expecting that and none of us were, I think, heading into the race. The amount of graining compared to last year was one per cent of what they had last year.
“The set-up direction we chose and even the aero balance direction we chose was towards protecting the front axle. When the fronts don’t die, then you suddenly have yourself a really tricky car to drive. I was really struggling to find the correct way to push the car that we had today. Definitely, I had a lot less confidence in it than I had had in the previous three or four races,” he concluded.
Bearman would perhaps find a little more satisfaction with his effort at the F1 Las Vegas GP now. The post-race penalties disqualified the McLaren drivers for excessive plank wear. That put the Haas rookie in P10 and earned him a point. Antonelli, meanwhile, got promoted to P3.
