Oliver Bearman revealed that a rare setup mistake in his car on Friday during the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend in Malaysia was directly linked to his exit in Q1 of the qualifying on Saturday (3).
The Haas driver from Britain managed only the 18th-fastest time in the session, exiting alongside his teammate Esteban Ocon. It turns out the young racer explained that the major issue was a huge setup error on the car during FP2.
“For me, the problem persisted throughout the weekend. We started FP1 without issue, but in FP2 we ran into a setup problem. Essentially, the setup we intended to use wasn’t what ended up being applied, and the car ended up in a configuration we would never use on a race car,” he said.
“Not even on an oval circuit would you use that kind of setup; basically, right at the first lap of FP2, I told them: ‘Guys, there’s something wrong with this car.’ When every lap on the same set of tires is one second slower, losing two important laps means losing almost half of the laps we ran that day,” he continued.
“So, I basically lost FP2; it felt like we didn’t learn anything. That really prevented us from moving into Q2 today,” he added.
Although happy with the car, Bearman said he felt a day behind his rivals, which put him at a disadvantage in the timing screens. “In FP3, I did two fast laps and I was simply trying to learn and understand what the car needed, since everyone else could do that yesterday,” he said.
“I was learning as I went, and the only time I truly had a good car and a good feel was on that last attempt. While the situation was frustrating for Bearman, he didn’t want to blame anyone specifically within the team. It isn’t the fault of any single person; it was just processes that weren’t followed and things like that,” he added.
“Everything is always a rush. The decisions about what to do are always made at the last moment. The setup we thought we were using wasn’t actually what was in the car. These things happen, but they serve as a warning to everyone to stay alert, because without this, I would have been in Q2,” he concluded.
