Oliver Bearman gave a blunt assessment of his Sunday afternoon, as Crash.net reports, after a strategic gamble by Haas completely derailed his Bahrain Grand Prix. The British driver was left fuming with the team's decision to put him on slick tyres at the start, ruining what he believed was a genuine shot at fighting for points at the Sepang International Circuit.
Bearman made his preference clear from the outset, pushing hard to start on intermediate tyres as the conditions clearly demanded. Instead, without his knowledge, the pit wall went the other way. Haas opted for a split strategy, leaving Bearman on slicks while putting his teammate behind him on the correct intermediate rubber.
“My throttle pedal worked, which was a good start, but I ended up on slicks, and that was the wrong choice,” Bearman explained. The 21-year-old was adamant he never wanted the slick tyre and received no warning about the late switch.
As the lead car on the grid, Bearman felt uniquely aggrieved by the gamble. He noted that the safer, more standard strategy normally belongs to the lead machine, while the riskier roll of the dice is meant for the second car. By the time the dust settled, a safety car left him completely stranded 40 seconds behind the midfield pack.
Despite the early disaster, the machine itself had genuine speed. Once he finally made it onto the hard compound, Bearman carved past an Alpine and pulled away cleanly, lamenting what could have been if cooler weather conditions had not been wasted on a doomed tyre choice.
“I feel a bit hard done by to be given the riskier strategy,” Bearman said. When the checkered flag fell, he salvaged 14th place, finishing just ahead of his teammate in 15th.
