- Oliver Bearman has been given a 10-place grid penalty ahead of the British GP
- Bearman bizarrely suffered a crash as he entered the pit during third practice
Oliver Bearman has received a 10-place grid penalty ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The Haas driver was penalised after he bizarrely crashed upon entering the pit during final practice on Saturday.
Earlier in the session a red flag was raised as a result of Bearman losing a piece of bodywork from his car, with marshals having to retrieve the part from the track.
Later, another red flag was shown when Gabriel Bortoleto’s car spun off the circuit at high speed.
Bearman headed towards the pit lane but ended up spinning and lost the front wing from his car.
The incident was investigated by stewards, with Bearman subsequently being penalised.
As reported by F1’s official website, a document was released following the hearing.
The document read: ‘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.’
Bearman has also received four penalty points, which means that he now has eight on his licence.
20-year-old Bearman is set to compete in his first race at Silverstone as an F1 driver.
He finished in eleventh place in his last two races – in Canada and Austria.
