Ollie Bearman Turns a Near-Disaster Into Haas’s Best Result in Years

Oliver Bearman finished fifth at the Chinese Grand Prix, but the result almost never happened, as he came within a fraction of a second of a significant accident on the very first lap.



Heading through Turn 13 shortly after the start, Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull snapped sideways across the track directly in Bearman’s path, leaving the Haas driver with almost no time to react.



“I was so lucky, to be honest, to avoid that,” Bearman said in the media pen afterwards. “I mean, I’m lucky to be standing here.”



“Honestly, that would have been a monster shunt. It was a really tricky corner, that whole race, with the wind today. It was just all over the place, the car balance, I think for everyone, well I hope for everyone, because it was tough for me.”



The evasive action pushed him wide onto the run-off area and dropped him back to around twelfth, which made the afternoon’s recovery all the more impressive.



Once he rejoined the running order and gathered his bearings, Bearman began picking off cars with the kind of systematic aggression that has characterised his racing since he burst onto the scene.



“Yeah, I made some overtakes on track,” he said. “You know, I was quicker than the RBs, and I was quicker than the Audi at that stage. That was strong, and the car felt great.”



A perfectly timed safety car for Lance Stroll’s retirement helped him recover most of the ground he had lost in the chaos, bringing him back roughly to where he had been before Hadjar’s spin.



“Then, you know, we picked up a great safety car timing. But I think with the bad luck on lap one, that was cancelled out by the great timing of the safety car,” he acknowledged.



What followed was 40 laps of relentless pushing, which Bearman described with unconcealed enjoyment: “Honestly, I was doing like 40 quali laps, which was good fun.”



He held off a charging Pierre Gasly in the final stages to seal fifth, adding to his seventh in Melbourne and his Sprint point to give him 17 points and fifth place in the drivers’ championship.



Haas sit fourth in the constructors’ standings as a result, which is a genuinely remarkable position for a team that was nowhere near this level of consistency just twelve months ago.



The VF-26 appears to carry more race pace than qualifying pace, and Bearman was open about the gap Gasly showed over the final ten laps, noting: “Pierre has been incredibly fast this weekend. Even on the race, the last ten laps, he was coming at me incredibly quickly.”



After a strong opening to the season, Bearman said simply: “We couldn’t have asked for more, and I just want to keep pushing like this now.”
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