Haas stand-in Oliver Bearman gave a detailed assessment of his battle with Lewis Hamilton in the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Bearman emerged a few seconds in front of Hamilton after his pit stop with the duo on the fringes of the points positions.
As the race at Baku wound down, Bearman, chasing Franco Colapinto’s Williams was pounced upon by Hamilton on the inside line at Turn 1.
“You know when you go around the outside that he’s going to leave you space, which is a nice feeling,” Bearman told Motorsport.com.
“In Turn 1, I knew that he wasn’t going to put me in a wall, which is a bit less sure with some other drivers.
“That’s a nice feeling and it’s always very clean but hard when I was racing him.”
Bearman rued pushing to pass Colapinto which hurt his tyres and handed the initiative to Hamilton.
The ever self-critical Bearman acknowledged the sequence a “mistake.”
He explained “I was really pushing hard for some laps to overtake Franco and my tyres were getting really hot.
“It was exactly at that point that he pounced on me and could overtake me quite easily.
“After that, I needed a few laps and I caught him back up and was almost catching the DRS again.
“It’s annoying that I let him overtake but you can’t make little mistakes with a guy like that behind.”
Fortune hands Bearman a point
A combination of fortuitous factors then played into Bearman’s hands and allowed for more wheel-to-wheel action with Hamilton.
Bearman’s Haas team-mate Nico Hulkenberg found himself succumbing to the Williams of Colapinto after a brush with the Turn 15 wall hurt his pace.
Hulkenberg’s woe continued as he drove through debris amid Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s late crash.
Worried he had a puncture, Hulkenberg didn’t react at pace to green flags on the approach to Turn 3.
This allowed Hamilton and Bearman to sweep by in a tight flurry of racing action.
“It went green again and I managed to get him with Lewis,” Bearman said.
“It was an overtake. I’m sorry for [Hulkenberg].
“He had a problem to lose the position also to Franco, but I’m happy to take the point.”
The factors combined to grant Bearman a 10th-place finish at the chequered flag and the second points finish in as many F1 outings.
A bizarre turn of events means Bearman is the only driver to score points in his first two Grands Prix with two different teams after scoring with Ferrari during his late call-up at Jeddah in place of Carlos Sainz.
