Oliver Bearman felt at couple of corners in F1 Singapore GP which cost him against rivals, but he could still score, as Esteban Ocon lost out after pit stop.
Already at the start of F1 Singapore GP, Haas’ Bearman had to take evasive action at Turn 1 against Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar, who was trying to fend off Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. The Frenchman on the wrong side had a bad getaway which sent him into the Brit.
As a result, Bearman dropped behind the pair of them. The incident was deemed as racing one with no charges on Hadjar and or the Brit for taking the run-off route. From then on, it was about hanging onto the points position against the likes of Nico Hulkenberg, Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda.
As the grand prix progressed, Bearman firmed his place in the Top 10 when others faltered or got stuck in the DRS train. Due to Alonso’s slow stop and Hadjar’s engine issues, it looked like he would finish in eighth. But the Aston Martin driver’s late charge denied any chance of that happening.
He got ninth, though, taking advantage of Hadjar’s issue. Post-race, Bearman noted that he struggled hugely at Turn 5, which limited his performance and there was no way to keep Alonso behind. Also, he got stuck behind Sainz, which further derailed his chance to create a larger gap.
But he was pleased to score points still. “Yeah, it was a shame,” said Bearman to media. “I need to review it. I don’t exactly know what happened, but I think he [Hadjar] was also in between Hamilton and myself. From the way we were breaking into the corner, I had no expectation that Hamilton would go early and it would be three wide.
“But I actually haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t want to pass any comment on it. It was a shame to lose the position to Fernando on that lap one, but then we inherited it again after the stops. Unfortunately, I just got stuck behind Carlos for what felt like 90 laps. We were quite poor all race well, I was quite poor all race in Turn 5 and Turn 11, which are basically two incredibly important corners if you want to set up an overtake.
“And I was just really struggling with the car balance through that. I was struggling with oversteer in Turn 5. It’s one of the faster corners on the track. Just there I was really struggling with the rear of the car and the entry and exit. I was losing a lot of time to Fernando there and actually he was able to overtake me into that corner. And then he was able to overtake Carlos into Turn 7 as well.
“The fact that I was bad in that corner meant that I was vulnerable and also I couldn’t attack cars ahead. And then Turn 11, I just couldn’t really ride the kerbs very well there. We’re known to be quite stiff over the kerbs. That’s one of the things we have to deal with to get performance out of this car. We have an upgrade coming next week.
“Baku was a bit of a case of missed opportunity because we had a similar car pacing, even better than what we had this weekend. So, it’s just come away with some points. It’s a good feeling and it’s going to give us some momentum heading into the next few rounds,” summed up Bearman, as teammate Ocon was confused by the places lost after his pit stop.
Having started the weekend on a high note, Ocon’s run dipped on Saturday and despite some cure, it wasn’t enough in the grand prix coupled with the DRS train he found himself in. “It was a big surprise, basically, when I boxed and I came out behind a six DRS train cars , we had the pace but we basically lost out on the position I gained at the start and all the other cars that was behind us,” he said.
“So it was not really an optimised race from that side of things. It is difficult one to swallow because a lot of things went wrong in Singapore, starting from qualifying which was the thing that hurt us the most. Yeah, even this race was not optimised, so we need to look back and reflect on everything that happened during the week and hopefully put it together on the next one.
“The brakes was a big problem the whole race, don’t know what happened to Lewis at the end, but yeah, it was difficult especially in traffic. It was a different one [to previous issues]. It is two points which is better than nothing, but we should have scored more with two cars, I hope the upgrades will give us something, some benefits for Austin but yeah, we need to put the weekend together.”
Here’s how F1 Singapore GP panned out
