Oliver Bearman disputed the stewards’ decision to penalise him for his collision with Pierre Gasly during the United States Grand Prix.
The pair made contact as Bearman tried to pass Gasly for 10th place. The incident left him with damage which led Haas to retire his car after Bearman served his 10-second time penalty.“After the [Virtual Safety Car] I managed to get a good launch and [had] good battery level,” Bearman explained. “I caught the two in front of me very quickly and managed to make the Pierre go defensive into turn 12 and then into 13 I sent one up the inside.
“To be honest, yeah I went up his inside, he saw me because he left space, but for me it didn’t really feel like enough. It was a bit of space but only half a car and by the time I was committed, I wasn’t disappearing. So we made a bit of contact.
“I picked up a huge amount of damage on my car. I probably damaged Pierre’s car as well. It was a shame because I felt like I was massively penalised for it anyway. It actually ruined my race, to have that amount of damaged. I was losing a second a lap due to downforce.
“Then on top of that, I picked up a penalty. In my view, it was a racing incident. I sent a move, okay, but I felt like I was entitled to a bit more space than I got. I didn’t lose control. I had to even climb up onto the kerb to try and avoid contact, because I didn’t feel like I was given enough space. So one of those things. The main thing was that I picked up a heck of a lot of damage, and the car was terrible after that, so it was a shame.”
The stewards ruled Bearman was not close enough to Gasly to be entitled to space. “The front axle of car 87 [Bearman] was not ahead of the mirror of car 10 [Gasly] at the apex where a collision occurred
between the two cars,” they noted.
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“The stewards determined that the driver of Car 87 was wholly to blame for the collision and imposed a 10-second penalty accordingly.”
Bearman was surprised to learn of his penalty, replying “you’re kidding me?” when told on his radio.
Gasly went on to finish in 10th place. Bearman said “I don’t regret going for the move” despite the penalty and damage. “At this stage if we don’t do something special and get a bit lucky and be aggressive and go for it, then we’re not going to score points because we’re fast enough to do that on merit.
“Looking where he is now, I’m happy that he’s likely going to score points after the contact that we had, but I feel like that could have been me and of course that was what I was going for.”