Customise Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Home Featured Early move “crucial but not deciding” Baku F2 feature race win for Bearman

Early move “crucial but not deciding” Baku F2 feature race win for Bearman

by Alejandro Alonso Lopez

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Ollie Bearman completed a Formula 2 clean sweep with his feature race victory in Baku, but it wasn’t as straightforward as it might have seemed.

The Prema driver suffered from his car bottoming out in the early stages of the race, and lost first place to ART Grand Prix’s Theo Pourchaire at turn one on lap three of 29.

However, the Ferrari Driver Academy ace stayed on his rival’s tail and reclaimed the lead one lap later at the same place.

“Especially on the early laps when the tyre pressures were low, the car is touching a lot in the straight. It was really holding me back,” he explained.

“I couldn’t really see how fast Theo was catching, but I knew he was going to be close and he was really strong on the brakes, especially at the start of the race.

“He went for it. I followed him for a lap and he was pushing a lot more than me at that stage of the race. So I picked up my pace a bit, got him back and from there I knew what to do. I managed to break the DRS and finish the stint.”

Asked whether he would have had his race compromised staying longer behind Pourchaire, Bearman reckoned that his super-soft tyres would have suffered more as a result, but his pace would have allowed him to get back ahead of the Sauber junior later in the race.

“At the stage he overtook me, I didn’t really want to sit behind. Especially on the super-soft tyre, it’s better to be in clean air to do your stint. So I decided that I wanted to pass them straight away.

“To be honest, if I didn’t, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. We knew we were going to be fast on the prime tyre, but overtaking him back put me in a good position to have a clean stint.

“It was crucial, but I don’t think it was a deciding point of the race,” he told Formula Scout.