Oliver Bearman happy with momentum on his side after another solid outing in F1 Brazil GP, as Esteban Ocon reveals puncture to derail his chances.
After fourth place in Mexico, Haas’ Bearman secured sixth in Brazil to make it four consecutive points finishes and five points finishes in last seven races. He had distant hopes of qualifying in the Top 5 after Q1 and Q2 performances, but had to be content with eighth in Q3 eventually.
He started off fending Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, but couldn’t crack the pair of Visa Cash App RB cars and Mercedes’ George Russell. But a timely pit stop allowed him to get the better of Isack Hadjar, with Liam Lawson’s one-stop dropping him behind Bearman eventually after an overtake.
With Charles Leclerc’s retirement, it put Bearman in sixth for latter part of the grand prix, where he had a lonely run considering Lawson held the chasing pack behind. The Brit showcased another fine performance in a different type of race as he termed it as with varied strategies in display.
He thinks the momentum is on his side, which is key in F1 to secure better results. “Yeah, of course, when you have varying strategies, it’s going to be an interesting race with more overtakes, more tyre downturn,” said Bearman to media. “Even if I think in the early laps I showed that we had pace and I was able to overtake some cars.
“Most of my overtakes were down to having much smoother tyres and not even in the same race as some guys. So it’s cool to be part of this type of race where some people are one starting, some people are two, some people are mediums, some on soft. It makes life quite difficult for us as drivers, means you have to really attack and you never have an easy time out there.
“But it was a fantastic race. We had really, really good pace. So, yeah. I wouldn’t even say Baku is a low point. I mean, I did a mistake in a quali where half of the grid crashed out. So, if it was just me, it’s a low point. If it was half the grid, it’s one of those things and then you have to take it on the chin. But no, it’s been a series of really, really strong races.
“And momentum is a powerful thing in this sport, so I’ll try and keep it up,” summed up Bearman, as teammate Ocon revealed that his race was undone by puncture unseen on world feed. The Frenchman suffered puncture a lap after Max Verstappen. The Dutchman was able to pit under the Virtual Safety Car, but the Haas driver was not so lucky as he pitted when it went green.
He dropped back in the pack. He tried to come back but was eventually stuck in a train of cars led by Lawson, behind Alexander Albon in 12th after starting from pitlane. He had pace like Bearman, but couldn’t utlisise it to the fullest. “Yeah, lots of frustration because we had the puncture just the lap after Max and that puncture was exactly at the time when the race resumed,” said Ocon to media.
“So, I lost like 10 seconds of the time and that’s what all made the difference, I wouldn’t have lost to all those cars. Yeah, extremely disappointed really, no luck really. And no points for a long time now and problems that we are dealing, just not aligning for us. But the positive that we can take away is that the pace of the car was okay with all these cars around.
“We would have been able to make progress but disappointed. We changed a few things for the race, obviously different to qualifying but still there’s things that we have to look, digging with the engineers, there’s a lot of things for us that made sense, we will keep all united and pushing forward to find the answers and come back in better way in the next race but it wasn’t our weekend. The set-ups are very similar [between me and Oliver],” summed up Ocon.
Here’s train of cars behind Liam Lawson: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-p7-lawson-leads-eight-car-train-over-the-line.1848340684106498401
Here’s how F1 Brazil GP panned out
Here’s Liam Lawson on leading the pack
