Oliver Baerman was given a major penalty for crashing under the red flag of British Grand Prix FP3, bringing him closer to a race ban.
The FP3 was red flagged as Gabriel Boltreto went out to Beckett, causing damage to his suspension as he would, and trapped in gravel. The Bareman recreated the speed of the race, lost control with the cold brakes, slammed the barrier, and was heading towards the pit lane as he accelerated to wipe the front wing and nose off the car.
As the incident happened under the conditions of the Red Flag, the Steward investigated the crash and hit Bareman with a 10th place grid penalty against the British Grand Prix, but also had four penalty points on his license that increased his total of eight over the past 12 months.
“The car 87 slowed down due to the red flag and as he was approaching, Turn 15 accelerated significantly into racepace and entered pit entry road at 260kph,” Steward’s decision read. “He lost control of the car on pit entry road and hit a barrier.
“Art. 37.6(a) F1 Sport Regulations and Art Art. 2.5.4.1(b) In Appendix H of the International Sports Code, if a red flag appears, “All cars must immediately slow down and slowly return to the pit lane.”
“There is no doubt that the driver of the car 87 did not slowly return to the pit lane when he accelerated to simulate entering the pit entry road under racing conditions. In fact, we saw previous laps under normal racing conditions and he was faster on this lap and faster under the red flag.
“The driver informed us that he misjudged the fact that his brakes were not warm because the laps were done slowly due to the red flag. This may be a factor that contributes to the crash, but we didn’t consider it to be a mitigation factor.”
Bearman will not lose penalty points from his license until November 3rd, when the two were removed due to a clash with Brazilian Franco Colapinto last year. That’s why it’s only four points away from the ban on the next nine races, including this weekend at Silverstone.
