Oliver Bearman is now dangerously close to a race ban after the Stewards found him to be predomintly at fault over the collision between him and Carlos Sainz at the Italian Grand Prix. The Briton has since reacted to the incident and its consequences.
Starting P11, right outside the point-scoring places, the Haas driver found himself with a shot to finish in the top 10 throughout the race.
The Briton who came into the pits on lap 18 in an attempt to undercut his closest rivals ahead, was locked in a battle with Williams driver Carlos Sainz for P10.
On lap 41 of the Italian Grand Prix the tussle between the two took a turn for the worse. Sainz went for a move around the outside into the second chicane having had a better exit out of the first chicane which gave him a speed advantage throughout Curva Grande as well.
As the two drivers turned into Variante della Roggia, Bearman was left with no room to make the first part of the chicane, with Sainz cutting across the Briton's path. The Williams' driver's left rear made contact with the Haas driver's right front and both were sent into a spin.
Bearman filled with emotion: "It's a shame"
After the race, having already heard the verdict from the stewards, that deemed him to be predominantly at fault for the incident, thus penalising him with a ten-second time penalty and an added 2 penalty points on his license which brings him up to 10, out of 12-point limit that would see him get a race ban should he reach it, Bearman told GPblog: "Yeah, I haven't looked fully into it," referring to the incident with Sainz.
"I need to have a look, but it's a shame because we were having a good race."
When asked how he felt with regards to the penalty, the British rookie admitted he was still charged with emotion: "I haven't seen back the incident. It's tough until you watch it back without emotion.".
For Bearman the issue was particularly difficult to digest since points were up for grabs. "Well, I mean, definitely in the points [was the race end's projection]," he said.
"I was right behind Bortoletto, in front of Hadjar, so, I think we easily had points on our foot today," Bearman concluded.
Earlier in the season the Haas rookie got his last Q1 lap deleted due to red flags being waved following Franc Colapinto's crash at Imola, which saw the British youngster respond harshly to the Stewards' decision.
In Monte-Carlos he was held accountable for a red flag infringement for overtaking Sainz under red flag conditions during FP2. And later on, Bearman was again deemed to be at fault over a red flag breach in FP3 for the British Grand Prix.
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