Oliver Bearman details shocking Haas issue behind Malaysia struggles

Oliver Bearman has revealed that an unusual error with his car setup on Friday in Malaysia had a direct consequence for his early exit from qualifying.

Bearman ended Saturday's session in 18th place, suffering a Q1 exit alongside his Haas team-mate Esteban Ocon.

The 21-year-old highlighted that he felt underprepared for the session due to a calamitous setup mistake for FP2, which saw the team make incorrect tunings to Bearman's car.

As a result, it put his preparations for qualifying on the back foot as he drove around the circuit with settings that were far from suited to the layout.

"For me, the issue has been an all-weekend-long one," Bearman told media including RacingNews365.

"We started out in FP1, it was okay, but then in FP2 we had a problem with the car setup.

"Basically, the setup that we intended to put on the car was not the setup that ended up on the car, and the car ended up in a state that we would never intend to ever run a race car.

"Not even on an oval would run this type of setup, and basically, from the first lap I did in FP2 I told them, 'Guys, something's wrong with this car'.

"When every lap you do on the same set of tyres is one second off, if you lose two important laps, that's almost half of your laps done in a day.

"So I missed out on FP2, almost, it feels like we learned nothing.

"That really stopped us from getting through into Q2 today."

[Article continues below]

The issue was rectified for the final practice outing on Saturday in Sepang, a session that saw Bearman finish 17th.

Although he felt happier with the car, Bearman stated he was a day late with his preparations compared to his rivals, putting him at a disadvantage for qualifying.

"In FP3, I had two push laps, and I was just trying to learn and figure out what the car needs because everybody else got to do that yesterday,” he said.

"I was learning on the job, and the only time I've actually had a good car and had a good feeling was in that final run.”

While it marked a frustrating turn of events for Bearman, he refused to pin blame on any individual within the team.

"It's no specific person's fault, it's just processes missed and things like that,” Bearman added.

"Everything is always a rush. It's always last minute when we decide what to do.

"What we thought we were running, we were not running at all. It's part of life, but it's a big kick for everybody to make sure that we're on it because without that, I'm in Q2."