Haas driver Oliver Bearman is teetering on the edge of a racing ban following a collision with Carlos Sainz Jr in Monza. The Brit currently has ten out of the twelve permissible penalty points on his super license, with the first two points only set to expire in November. Bearman acknowledges that he needs to tread carefully in the upcoming races.
“I guess I just go for it now when I’m on the outside, right?” says Oliver Bearman with a smile, when asked about the looming racing ban. The incident with Sainz, for which the young rookie received his latest two penalty points, occurred in Monza. Bearman was on the inside at Variante della Roggia and, according to the stewards, did not leave enough space for the Spaniard. In addition to the two penalty points, the Brit was handed a ten-second time penalty.
“It’s my fault that I got the penalty, whether we agree with it or not,” Bearman tells F1TV in Baku. “But it’s still hard to accept. We weren’t raised to race like this. When you’re braking hard for a corner, you’re not really thinking about the three-part guideline that the FIA sent in January. That’s just not possible. You race instinctively, as you’ve been taught.“
Unfairness
Bearman knows he needs to be cautious of a racing ban, now that he has accumulated ten penalty points. “Yes, it’s clearly something I need to consider. I just need to drive a few races without incidents,” he says. Yet, the penalty from Monza continues to bother him. “The rules are the rules. But as a driver and a fan, it’s hard to swallow that penalty, because from my perspective, I was never out of control. I was just racing towards the corner with another driver, and then I was given absolutely no space. Ultimately, this is what the rules dictate. That’s why I feel somewhat unfairly treated,” he explains.
