Max Verstappen could not believe his eyes as he watched Ollie Bearman’s bizarre pit-lane crash during British Grand Prix practice.
Formula 1 is at Silverstone this weekend where Lando Norris has the chance to overtake McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in the championship battle in front of his home fans.
But Ferrari are looking very quick, with Sir Lewis Hamilton fastest in first practice on Friday while Charles Leclerc topped third practice on Saturday ahead of qualifying.
However, final practice finished in peculiar fashion after Gabriel Bortoleto spun off in the final few minutes and badly damaged his Sauber, bringing out the red flag.
As drivers headed back to the pits, British star Bearman accelerated rapidly as he got to the pit-lane entrance before slamming on the brakes – perhaps trying to simulate race conditions.
However, this caused his Haas to spin and slam into the barriers at high-speed. Thankfully, the 20-year-old was unhurt and was able to nurse his car, minus the front wing, back to the garage.
Verstappen was directly behind the rookie with a clear view of the crash and was left completely baffled by the shunt.
‘Oh my god! Someone just crashed in the pit entrance! Haha, what?!’ the four-time champion said over the team radio as he drove past the debris.
‘**** idiot, my brakes were cold. ****, sorry,’ Bearman said on the radio in the immediate aftermath.
The stewards took a dim view of the rookie’s shunt, slapping him with a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race, meaning Bearman will almost certainly start his first home grand prix from last place.
‘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,’ the steward’s verdict read.
‘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.’
Ahead of the British Grand Prix, Bearman is 18th in the standings with six points from the opening 11 races.
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