Ahead of qualifying for the F1 British GP, Ollie Bearman has been handed a 10-place grid penalty at his home race. It comes following an incident at the end of FP3.
As Gabriel Bortoleto pushed through the Maggots and Becketts session, he had a big snap and the car got away from him. Unusually the left front suspension folded as he ended up on the grass and it spat him off well into the run-off.
With the red flags out, Ollie Bearman was attacking the pit entry. However, the Brit locked his rears and found the barriers, breaking his front wing in the process. He called himself and idiot over the radio as the 20-year-old blamed cold brakes for his error.
Unsurprisingly, the F1 British GP stewards took a dim view of what Ollie Bearman did as it took place under red flags and he was handed the now standard 10-place grid penalty for a red flag infringement.
Bearman is now on 8 penalty points overall as he picked up 4 for today’s incident.
FIA stewards document on Ollie Bearman penalty for F1 British GP
“The session was red flagged at 12.33:57. Car 87 had slowed down for the red flag andas he was approaching Turn 15 accelerated significantly and entered the pit entry road at 260kph. He lost control of the car in the pit entry road andcrashed into the barriers.Art. 37.6 (a) of the Formula One Sporting Regulations and Art. 2.5.4.1(b) of AppendixH 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 raceconditions.
“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.
“We accordingly penalised him per the penalty guidelines to a drop of 10 grid places.”
