Oliver Bearman is adamant that he must make and learn from errors in F1 in pursuit of being "the best" in the future.
The Haas driver has enjoyed a strong rookie season, with impressive pace and a landmark fourth-place finish at the recent Mexico City Grand Prix.
He followed that up with another strong drive to sixth at the São Paulo Grand Prix. Now on a run of four-successive points finishes, he has moved 10 points clear of his experienced team-mate Esteban Ocon in the drivers' standings.
As a Ferrari junior, it has led to speculation that he could find himself racing for the Italian team sooner rather than later, especially given Lewis Hamilton's difficult first year at Maranello.
However, he has also made numerous mistakes throughout the campaign, something that Haas boss Ayao Komatsu has been open about and saw Bearman reach the cusp of a race ban.
Whilst that immediate threat has subsided, the Briton still has eight penalty points on his FIA super licence and must navigate the remainder of the season and the early part of 2026 without accruing an additional three.
One of his three outings in 2024 came due to former Haas driver Kevin Magnussen being suspended for a round, so the 20-year-old will want to avoid being on the receiving end of the motorsport governing body's ire.
Bearman picked up two points in Monaco for overtaking Carlos Sainz under red flag conditions during FP2, and a further two points at Monza for another incident with the Williams driver.
Although it is his crash at pit entry under red flag conditions during FP3 at the British Grand Prix that was most severely punished by the stewards.
When asked about his near-miss of a race ban, he explained to media, including RacingNews365, that he does not feel his wheel-to-wheel racing has been a problem.
Bearman said: "I never thought my approach on track was stiff... Four [penalty points] I definitely deserved in Silverstone, but that's not a racing thing, that's just a stupidity thing.
"And then I got another two in Monaco, which is also something that can be argued either way, in my opinion. It's not like I've been taking people out."
Addressing his biggest learning experience of the year, Bearman expanded on his mistake at Silverstone, but underlined the value in going through those moments and not needlessly chastising himself for them.
"It's not necessarily one thing," he said. "It's just learning the difficulties of F1, and that example in Silverstone, we're told to push at pit entry as much as possible, because you can gain like a second in the race by doing that.
"But then, there needs to be a bit of... It's not like a one-size-fits-all approach. You need to be adaptive, and that's just a silly error.
"And those silly errors are things that I will never do again. You know, that was very silly, but there have been a lot of mistakes that I've made, but I'm not putting myself down about it.
"I'm just understanding that if you want to be the best one day, you need to make these mistakes and get through them. And the important thing is that you learn from them and continue to improve."
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