Haas Formula One driver Oliver Bearman was penalized for failing to comply with a red flag during the third free practice session of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Bearman was penalized with a 10-place grid drop penalty for the Grand Prix, and four penalty points were added to his superlicense.
In the last six minutes of the practice session, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto spun off on the kerb and went straight into the gravel at high speed. The incident took out his front suspension as the red flags were brought out.
According to the stewards, Bearman slowed down before accelerating into the pit entry road at 260 kmph. What added to the Briton’s troubles was a crash into the barriers at the pit entry.
Revealing the reason for the penalty as a “failure to comply with a red flag,” the FIA stewards stated:
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“The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 87 (Oliver Bearman), the team representative and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence.
“The session 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.”
The four penalty points on Bearman’s superlicense added up to a total of eight. Sunday’s race marks his first home race as an F1 driver.