Oliver Bearman hammered by F1 stewards after red-flag gaffe

Oliver Bearman has been hammered by the British Grand Prix stewards after a second red-flag infringement in five races.

In the second practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix, Bearman was handed a 10-place penalty for overtaking the Williams of Carlos Sainz under red-flag conditions.

In the final practice run at Silverstone, the red flags were shown a second time when Gabriel Bortoleto crashed his Stake out of the Maggotts/Becketts complex, breaking the suspension.

En route back to the pits, and heading down the pit lane, Bearman lost control of his Haas, sliding into a barrier and dislodging the front wing. The Briton and his team laid the blame on the fact that the car's brakes were too cold.

After being found guilty of failing to comply with a red flag, Bearman has been handed another 10-place penalty, and four points on his licence, taking his tally to eight in the last 12 months.

The stewards' document read: “The race was red flagged at 12.33:57. Car 87 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 lost control of the car in the pit entry road and crashed into the barriers. Art. 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’. 

“It is beyond doubt that the driver of Car 87 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, we looked at a previous in-lap under normal racing conditions and found that he was faster in 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 driver informed us 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, we did not consider it to be a mitigating factor. We accordingly penalised him per the penalty guidelines to a drop of 10 grid places with 4 penalty points.”