Oliver Bearman was afraid he had earned a race ban when he was penalised for an incident during last weekend’s sprint race.
The stewards handed the Haas driver a 10-second time penalty for going off the track at the exit of turn 15 when Andrea Kimi Antonelli tried to overtake him on the inside of the corner. They ruled Bearman kept his position by going off the track.
Bearman learned of his time penalty when he asked his team during the race whether the stewards had looked into the incident. He admitted afterwards he feared he would also be given penalty points.
“I thought I had them, actually, with that penalty in the sprint race, which made me really sad,” he told the official Formula 1 channel.
However the stewards stopped issuing penalty points for ordinary track limits offences at the beginning of last season and Bearman received none for his incident with Antonelli.
Bearman has the most penalty points of any driver in F1 at present, with 10. If he collects two more at this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix he will incur an automatic one-race ban.
He is due to lose two penalty points from his licence between this weekend’s race and the next round in Brazil. “Then I can be myself a bit more,” he said.
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However he admitted he must avoid some of the mistakes which led him to accumulate 10 penalty points so quickly, such as “crashing in the pit lane and doing other stupid things that I did earlier in the year.”
Penalty box
Did the stewards issue the correct penalty? Cast your vote below and have your say in the comments.
Bearman’s penalty for leaving the track was:
- No opinion (0%)
- Far too lenient (0%)
- Slightly too lenient (0%)
- Correct (52%)
- Slightly too harsh (17%)
- Far too harsh (31%)
Total Voters: 29
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Oliver Bearman’s penalty points
| Date | Event | Session | Infringement | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/11/2024 | Brazilian Grand Prix | Grand prix | ‘Causing a collision with car 43 in turn 10.’ | 2 |
| 23/5/2025 | Monaco Grand Prix | Qualifying | ‘Car 87 overtook Car 55 under red flag.’ | 2 |
| 5/7/2025 | British Grand Prix | Third practice | ‘Failure to comply with a red flag’ | 4 |
| 7/9/2025 | Italian Grand Prix | Grand prix | ‘Car 87 collided with Car 55 at Turn 4’ | 2 |
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