The Haas driver was frustrated after losing positions following contact avoidance, saying the Red Bull driver “could have caused a huge crash.”
Oliver Bearman made it successive ninth place finishes for Haas, showing strong pace throughout the weekend, but was critical of Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda after an incident between the pair.
Bearman was chasing down Tsunoda in the battle for seventh but took to the inside grass at turn 15 in avoidance of the Red Bull driver and spun. Bearman recovered, but relinquished eighth to Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, and was unable to advance back higher than ninth across the remaining laps. The incident between Bearman and Tsunoda was not even noted by stewards but the Haas racer was left frustrated.
“To be disappointed with P9 is a good thing, P7 was not unrealistic result,” Bearman said. “I had a difficult first stint but found a groove going into the second one, and the incident with Yuki, what he did was quite dangerous, it’s against the spirit of how we go racing and the image we should project to kids growing up karting and stuff. This is not the way we go racing, he was swerving all over the place for a few laps and when I finally did stick my nose in and attempt a move, he moved in reaction, didn’t leave a car’s width, and that’s unfair, not allowed, and it could have caused a huge crash without my quick avoidance.”
Bearman added that Tsunoda was driving “maybe a little bit desperately, and that was shown in his defense,” while pointing to Tsunoda deciding to battling the out-of-sync Charles Leclerc after the Ferrari driver made his pit stop.
“I feel like he has this issue with other drivers, he was fighting against Charles, who was not even in the [same] race with him—like, why are you defending from him? It’s just not thinking forward… silly driving in my opinion.”
Esteban Ocon had a low-key weekend in the other Haas, pointing to a loss of aero balance in high-speed sections, and team boss Ayao Komatsu is optimistic of remedying the situation.
“We need to bring Esteban up—he’s struggling a little bit with a certain feeling in the car, but you can see the potential is there,” Komatsu said. “I don’t see any reason, if we address that, why we can’t get both cars into the points.”
Category: General Sports
