Ollie Bearman has been handed a 10-place grid penalty for the British Grand Prix following a red flag infringement during the weekend’s third and final practice hour.
The session had already proven eventful for Bearman, the Haas driver earlier sparking a red flag after losing a piece of bodywork from his car out on track which resulted in the marshals having to retrieve the part.
But there was worse to come for the Briton when a second red flag was thrown in the latter stages owing to Kick Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto spinning off and becoming beached in the gravel.
As he headed into the pit lane, Bearman had a spin of his own and hit the barriers, losing the front wing from his VF-25 in the process.
With the incident happening under red flag conditions, it was subsequently investigated by the stewards who opted to hand the 20-year-old a grid drop of 10 places for Sunday’s race.
A document released following the stewards’ hearing reads: “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.”
As well as the grid penalty, Bearman has also received four penalty points, bringing the total on his licence up to eight.
The British driver is competing in his first home Grand Prix as an F1 driver, with last year’s event at Silverstone being where the youngster’s deal to race for Haas in 2025 was announced.
