05/07/2025
NEWS STORY
Oliver Bearman has been handed a 10-place grid penalty for tomorrow's British Grand Prix.
The session was red flagged at 12.33:57 after Gabriel Bortoleto went off into the gravel at Maggotts.
Bearman had slowed down for the red flag and as he was approaching Turn 15 accelerated significantly to race pace and entered the pit entry road at 260kph. He subsequently lost control of the car in the pit entry road and crashed into the barriers.
Article. 37.6 (a) of the Formula One Sporting Regulations and Art. 2.5.4.1 (b) of Appendix H 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'.
To the stewards it was beyond doubt that Bearman 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, they looked at a previous in-lap under normal racing conditions and found that he was faster on 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 Haas driver informed the stewards 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, the stewards did not consider it to be a mitigating factor and accordingly penalised him per the penalty guidelines to a drop of 10 grid places and 4 penalty points, bringing his total to 8 for the 12 month period.