“Too much, too soon” – Bearman rues Melbourne FP1 crash

Oliver Bearman apologised to his Haas mechanics after a crash during first practice for the F1 Australian Grand Prix saw the British rookie forced to sit out the second hour on Friday.

With a little over 20 minutes remaining of FP1, Bearman took too much kerb and ran wide at Turns 9 and 10, running onto the gravel and ultimately slamming into the wall, bringing out a red flag.

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While the 19-year-old was cleared by medical staff, his Haas needed plenty of attention and, despite the team’s best efforts, he was unable to get out of the garage for second practice.

“The feeling was good. I think just wanting a bit too much, too soon – which is kind of my approach, which isn’t really the right one for F1,” Bearman explained.

“In F2 you go straight to quali after the first practice session and in F1 you have two more, so there’s no need to be straight on the limit. Maybe I overdid it slightly, but it’s totally on me.

“Just a bit too much steering lock over the compression at the apex of 10, which sent me wide, and it’s quite bumpy out there. I just lost it.

“Once you’re in the gravel it’s so bumpy and there is asphalt, grass, bumps and I was already out of it, but once you’re there, honestly, there is no more control, unfortunately.”

Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Both sides of the Haas garage worked on trying to repair Bearman’s VF-25 in the hope of sending him out towards the latter stages of the afternoon practice session. However, their attempts were vain as Bearman was unable to take to the track at Albert Park.

Asked if he felt well physically, Bearman replied: “Yes, fine, it was a small hit, just not great for the car. So, yeah, my apologies to the team.

“It would have been nice just to do an install and check everything, make sure everything was OK for tomorrow.

“The guys did an amazing job, both sides of the garage helping me out to try and get me back on track. I can only apologise to them, and I owe them a few beers on Sunday.

“They’ve had a busy few weeks starting out with everything, building up the second car now, and to have the damage so early on and to put them back to work and give them a long evening is not really good enough. So, yeah, I can only apologise to them.”

While Bearman was confined to the back of the garage, fellow Haas newcomer Esteban Ocon was the slowest of the 19 runners able to post a time in FP2.

Having completed 31 laps, the Frenchman’s best effort still left him over a second and a half off the pace set by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Asked by Motorsport.com if there was more in the car, Ocon said: “It’s still very early days. Of course, it wasn’t the smoothest day for us.”

“We’ve had quite a few difficulties in some areas, and we need to smooth that all together. There’s a lot for us to test. We completely changed the car from P1 to P2.

“There are still some readings that we’re not happy with in P2. We’ve lost a little bit of time in some sessions, and we also didn’t get the full running with the two cars to be able to compare with both set-ups in general.

“It hasn’t been the smoothest day, but it’s the first Friday of the year, so that’s pretty normal.”

Team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted to Haas having had “a pretty difficult day” in Melbourne, with the outfit needing further analysis to get to the bottom of its worries.

“It wasn’t the performance we were expecting,” Komatsu said. “We have one indication as to why in FP1, but Ollie crashed so we couldn’t completely get to the bottom of why we were uncompetitive, so we need to make another step tonight and then do the best we can tomorrow.”

Additional reporting by Filip Cleeren