Oliver Bearman Describes “Strange” Monaco Crash After Qualifying Struggles

Oliver Bearman described his crash during Free Practice 3 at the Monaco Grand Prix as the “strangest” of his young Formula 1 career, following his elimination in Q1. The Haas driver lost control on a dusty section of track approaching the Massanet corner, hitting the barriers and damaging the right side of his VF-26.

“I just picked up the dust and lost it,” Bearman said matter-of-factly. “It was the strangest crash I ever had – so uncharacteristic of the car and everything that had happened that weekend. Suddenly I was facing the wrong way; it was super strange. Watching back, I just picked up a bit of dust. I was a bit more on the right to avoid the Mercedes car in traffic, and that’s just one of the things about Monaco. But the guys did such a good job getting the car back together, and it was feeling great in qualifying, so it’s a shame.”

The American team’s mechanics successfully repaired the car ahead of qualifying, but Bearman scored his lowest result of the year in 19th place after Gabriel Bortoleto crashed late in Q1. This interrupted Bearman’s best lap, and he subsequently struggled on cold tyres during his final run, improving by only 0.09s and finishing 0.013s short of the Q2 cutoff time.

“The lap I was on when it went yellow was good enough to be in the top 10 at that stage of qualifying, which would have gotten us through to Q2,” the British driver reflected. “I really think we had what it took to be fighting on the verge of Q3 today, and obviously qualifying is where it counts, so I’m really sad to be standing here [in the media pen] while Q2 was underway.”

“After the red flag, we queued for two and a half minutes, and I had to do the out-lap on a new set of tyres. Considering that for the rest of the weekend we’ve been doing out-prep, my tyres were about 10°C too cold, and I was sliding all over the place for the whole lap. There wasn’t enough grip to put together a lap there at the end, but it’s really a shame. That’s when the TV broadcast showed Bearman experiencing a substantial slide in the high-speed swimming pool section. ‘Just no grip,’ he added as Motorsport brought up that particular moment.

“I was pushing 110%, giving it everything, because I knew I needed an ‘everything’ lap to get through, but really the grip was nowhere. I was five tenths down on my best lap into the tunnel. Because I did my lap, obviously I had to back off for the yellow flag, and into the tunnel I was five tenths down, so I said ‘Okay, [either] I gain three tenths’ – which is what I needed – ‘or I’m not getting through,’ so I gave it everything, but it wasn’t quite enough.”

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