Ollie Bearman believes Haas “executed… a perfect race” as the Briton claimed another strong points finish with sixth in Sunday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, saying sixth “was the best possible result we could have achieved”.
The 20-year-old had headed to Brazil off the back of his strongest F1 result to date, a fourth place in Mexico City. Bearman’s form continued in Sao Paulo, where he qualified P8 after strong Q1 and Q2 sessions, despite receiving a five-second penalty for a collision with Liam Lawson in Saturday’s Sprint.
Having stayed out of trouble and running as high as fourth during the 71-lap race, Bearman finished best of the rest behind the leading runners and comfortably clear of the chasing pack to record his fourth consecutive points finish.
“Very happy. I think we executed honestly a perfect race and that was the best possible result we could have achieved,” said Bearman, whose eight points have left Haas just two behind Aston Martin in the Teams’ Championship.
“Of course we had some fortune with some cars retiring but overall I think we had a great race. Good strategy, good pace, some overtakes as well which is never fun because that’s always adding another element of risk, but it was a really nice one out there.
“Mexico was a bit of a surprise but to keep that momentum with a P6 is a great feeling and now we have a great opportunity heading into the final three races.”
Team-mate Esteban Ocon also showed strong pace but suffered a pit-lane start and then a puncture as a Safety Car period was ending, which dropped him down the order to 12th—only two seconds behind Liam Lawson in seventh.
“I would have been much further up if we didn’t have a puncture. Unfortunately, we got the puncture one lap after Max [Verstappen] and the race basically restarted when I came in so I lost however much time, probably like a good 10 seconds,” Ocon said.
“We finished in contact with P7, we were there at the end with Pierre [Gasly], Liam [Lawson], with Nico [Hulkenberg]. It was looking like a good finish but unfortunately not.
“[We lacked] probably two laps really to make further progress. It’s unfortunate because we had good pace but I think the luck was just not on our side this weekend.”