Annoyed Oliver Bearman forced to change approach to avoid F1 ban

Oliver Bearman says he will have to change his approach to avoid a race ban.

The Haas F1 driver picked up a 10 second penalty and two penalty points on his licence for being judged to have given Carlos Sainz's Williams insufficient room during a battle at the Italian Grand Prix.

Bearman now has 10 penalty points, meaning he is just two points from triggering an automatic suspension.

As a result, the 20-year-old Briton must walk a tightrope over the next four rounds, with two penalty points not being wiped from his record until the Brazilian Grand Prix in November.

Ahead of this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Bearman criticised F1’s racing guidelines and said he feels “pretty hard done by”.

“It’s annoying to be governed by these guidelines which I feel are quite vague in some areas and quite specific in others,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “With my incident in Monza I felt like I was pretty hard done by.

“The guidelines state that I don’t deserve any space on the inside in that specific scenario, which in my view is a bit harsh. Of course, I’m biased towards myself, but I think a lot of people will agree and say that was quite a harsh scenario.

“It’s definitely something that I have to take into account. It’s a shame to be at this point, but I just have to have a few clean races.”

At the time, the Monza stewards deemed Bearman to be at fault. 

"Car 55 [Sainz] attempted to overtake Car 87 [Bearman]  on the outside into Turn 4 and had its front axle ahead of the front axle of Car 87 at the apex, thereby earning the right to the racing line,” they said.

"The driver of Car 87 defended his position on the inside instead of giving up the position and caused the collision.

"The Stewards determine that the driver of Car 87 is predominantly at fault and therefore the standard penalty for such incidents is applied."

Where did Bearman get his penalty points? 

Bearman earned his first F1 penalty points last season for a collision with Franco Colapinto during a stand-in appearance in Brazil when he replaced the ill Magnussen.

Two more came at this year’s Monaco Grand Prix for overtaking under red flags during practice.

Bearman was then given four penalty points for crashing at the pit lane entry under red flag conditions during final practice at Silverstone.

The latest points from Monza have taken Bearman up to 10 and on the verge of being banned.