Oliver Bearman said the memory of his unexpected Formula 1 debut in last year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix leaves him with mixed feelings.
The Haas driver, who was racing in Formula 2 at the time, was drafted into Ferrari’s car at the 11th hour after Carlos Sainz Jnr had to have an appendectomy. Bearman had only one hour to practice before qualifying.
He was widely praised for his performance after qualifying 11th and climbing four places in the race to score points on his debut. However Bearman says the experience he has gained since then has taught him he could have done better.
“If I look back at myself from one year ago, I feel like an absolute idiot,” he told the official F1 channel. “Some of the laps and some of the lines I was doing were really bad.”
However he feels he did well enough under the circumstances. “I can’t be too harsh on myself, it was a tough scenario,” he said. “I wish I could repeat it this weekend.
“But I’m really happy, looking back, seeing how far I’ve developed and really enjoying driving on this track as normal and hopefully we can have a good qualifying.”
Bearman was the quicker of the two Haas drivers in practice today but could only manage 16th. He believes he can find more time on the soft tyre before qualifying.
“FP1 was difficult,” he said. “Again, I was struggling with similar issues that I did in Bahrain in the free practice sessions, just lacking confidence on the brakes.
“I had a few lock-ups and the car moving left and right in the braking, which is really difficult to predict. So we made a change for FP2. We put back the brakes from a race where they worked very well and it was the case again. The brakes were much better in the afternoon, so I’m happy with that.
“On the other hand, we suffered a little bit in the performance runs in FP2, missing a little bit, especially jumping onto the soft tyre, so definitely a bit of work to do for tomorrow.”
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