Bearman reveals Hamilton edge over F1 rivals after ‘yo-yo’ Baku battle

Oliver Bearman has aired his frustration at allowing Lewis Hamilton to get past him in what he described as an Azerbaijan Grand Prix "yo-yo" battle.

Bearman started 10th on his Haas F1 debut as the banned Kevin Magnussen's replacement, and qualified 11th, but started one place higher as Hamilton opted to fit fresh power unit parts and started from the pit-lane. 

The Mercedes eventually caught up to the Haas, with the two engaged in a battle for the minor points places along with the Williams pair of Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto and the sister Haas of Nico Hulkenberg. 

Hamilton would ultimately finish less than a second ahead of Bearman in ninth and 10th, with the 2025 Haas driver becoming the first driver in F1 history to score points in his first two grands prix having driven for two different constructors, following his seventh in Saudi Arabia for Ferrari. 

Detailing his first on-track battle with the seven-time world champion, Bearman expressed his frustration at a minor mistake.

"We were going like a yo-yo quite a lot," Bearman told media including RacingNews365 of his battle with Hamilton.

"I was pushing hard some laps to overtake Franco, and my tyres were really quite hot - and it was exactly at that point he popped up on [the back of] me.

"He overtook quite easily, and then I needed a few laps but caught him back up, so yeah, it is annoying that I let him overtake, but you know, with a guy like that, you can't make little mistakes.

"You know when you go around the outside, he is going to leave you space, which is a nice feeling.

"I knew he wasn't going to put me in the wall, which is a bit less sure with some other drivers, and it is always very clean, but hard when you race him."

Bearman's learning

As a quirk, Free Practice 2 was the first time in his F1 career that Bearman completed a typical race simulation in a grand prix car, but felt that the lessons learnt in the second session were useless by the time it came to the race.

"It was a tough race, I wasn't running in the points until the end because of the crash in front," he said, referencing the Sergio Perez/Carlos Sainz shunt that promoted him from 12th to 10th.

"The car was really fast, and honestly, I was really fast as well, I just lost a lot of time in the first stint, I was saving the tyres too much. 

"That was not necessary, and I took too much experience from FP2 into the race, but the track is so different in the race and if you can almost forget the long runs in FP2 and start again, I figured it out."