Oliver Bearman breaks silence after Brit suffers nightmare Australian GP practice crash | F1 | Sport
Oliver Bearman has offered up his assessment of a frustrating opening day at the Australian Grand Prix. The teenager crashed at Turn 10 after running wide into the gravel, bringing out a red flag and causing him to miss the remainder of FP1, and all of FP2 as his mechanics worked on repairing the damage. This is Bearman’s first Grand Prix as a full-time F1 driver.
The 19-year-old made three substitute appearances for Ferrari and Haas in 2024, impressing on all occasions, and these stand-in displays earned him a full-time seat with the latter for 2025. However, the Brit is now on the back foot after missing a significant chunk of the practice time in Melbourne. Haas were forced to put a new engine and gearbox in Bearman’s SF-25 as a result of the damage.
“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,” the Brit 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.”
Bearman went on to declare himself physically fit after the shunt. “Yes, fine, it was a small hit, just not great for the car,” he continued. “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.”
The crash marked a difficult opening day for Haas at the Albert Park Circuit. Team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted that the SF-25 didn’t show as much promise as the team was “expecting”, labelling the car “uncompetitive” after one day of running in Australia.
