Oliver Bearman qualified a brutal 18th at the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia today, but the real disaster struck on Friday when a catastrophic car setup error completely sabotaged his entire weekend. Haas teammate Esteban Ocon also had his own struggles with a wrong strategy call in Q1, but Bearman’s issue started much earlier and was far more radical.
The Setup Nightmare That Wasted a Day
Bearman had a decent FP1, but then everything went sideways. The setup intended for his car in FP2 just wasn’t the one they used. For some baffling reason, he ran the entire session on the wrong setup, an error so egregious that Bearman himself said it was something “no one would ever use on their F1 car, not even on an oval circuit.” He knew immediately there was a problem, telling his team right from the first lap in FP2, “something’s wrong with this car.” This wasn’t some minor tweak, this was a fundamental screw-up that put his car in a state they “would never intend to ever run a race car.”
Lost Laps, Lost Confidence, Lost Qualifying
That FP2 session was a total waste, completely setting Bearman back and stripping him of crucial mileage needed to prepare for qualifying. They fixed things for FP3, sure, but he was playing catch-up, essentially “learning on the job” while everyone else had already gotten their rhythm on Friday. Imagine losing almost half your laps on a day because every second one is a full second off! He felt like he “learned nothing” from FP2, and that critical lost confidence and track time kept him from finding the car’s balance. Bearman even admitted that the only time he had a “good car and had a good feeling” was on his final run in qualifying, making it impossible to get everything out of the tire because it was the first time all weekend he had a decent balance.
This is the second consecutive weekend Haas has faced a major operational error. Last weekend in Baku, it was a failure that cost them Q3, and this weekend’s setup blunder cost them Q2. While Bearman accepts that Haas wasn’t likely to progress beyond Q2 anyway, these “messy Friday” mistakes are crushing. He stressed the need for the team to “do better on that.” It’s a clear warning: Haas needs to get its act together operationally, or these self-inflicted wounds will keep piling up, costing them valuable track time and even more frustrating qualifying results.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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