British Grand Prix: Sprint Race / Qualifying Recap

Both drivers gained a grid spot with the Williams of Albon taking a pit-lane start – Bearman moving to P16 with Ocon directly behind in P17. Bearman climbed to P12 on the opening lap but settled back down to P13 for the first half before the Audi pairing of Hulkenberg and Bortoleto passed for position leaving the British racer to take P15 at the checkered flag – which was upgraded to P14 after a post-race penalty for Hulkenberg. Ocon climbed two positions to P15 at the start before Bortoleto overtook the Frenchman six laps later – Ocon holding station in P16 through to the end of the Sprint.

Saturday afternoon then saw Ocon and Bearman back in action to qualify for Sunday’s British Grand Prix – both drivers running exclusively on the Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires through their respective qualifying efforts. Bearman was successful in advancing into Q2 having set a fastest time of 1:30.570 in Q1 which was good enough for the second phase of knockout qualifying. Ocon was on course to join his teammate with progression before a yellow flag at Turn 13 for Colapinto’s Alpine off-track cost him time on what was his final flying lap of the session. Ocon posted a 1:30.680 which landed P17 on the timing sheet.

Bearman ran twice in Q2, both outings on fresh sets of soft rubber. An opening run of 1:30.588 was followed by a quicker time of 1:30.501 to place Bearman P14 on the grid for his home grand prix.

Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes claimed pole position in Q3 – his lap time of 1:28.111 besting the Scuderia Ferrari of Charles Leclerc on a 1:28.286.

Ollie Bearman:

“It was a good start in the Sprint and a good first lap, so I’m happy with that. After that, we dropped back to where we deserved to be. Audi had a poor start, and I also managed to jump the Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, who I think had an issue with deployment. After that, to be honest, not really much more I could’ve done, the Audis found their groove and eventually caught me. The first few laps were good, and then I started to struggle with my front left tire, and that was it.

“In qualifying I always try to get the most out of it, and today, that’s what I think we did. It was tight in Q1, and getting into Q2, it looks like we made a clear step ahead of Williams, so that’s a positive. I don’t see a world where we’re any better than P14 really, the car has been incredibly difficult. High-speed hasn’t been the biggest challenge, I’m mainly struggling in the low- and medium-speed entry, where I have to run the car in a way I can survive those entry phases or have a compromise, where in high-speed I’m massively limited by understeer. It’s a different problem from what we’ve encountered before, and we did some studies after the Sprint to find a bit more load on the car, but it doesn’t look like it worked. I’ll do my best tomorrow, the home crowd always gives me a boost.”

Esteban Ocon:

“We had a mega start in the Sprint, but I had to back off as the gap really closed in front. I could’ve gained more positions than that on the start, but had to back off. After that we overtook Carlos and both Audi drivers and we were fighting a lot through the first laps, but eventually, I had to give the places back to the Audi drivers as they were too fast for us. Another lap and I think I would’ve lost the place to Carlos as well. Then in the qualifying, it's incredibly frustrating what happened on that last lap – even more when it's because of a yellow flag and I was the only car that had to go by that single yellow.

“The team did a mega job giving me a very good car. It was more of a step forward than where we were in Sprint qualifying and where we've been in the last three to four races. The car was healthy and it was going well, we were in front of the competition and we were through until that last run when I had to back off a good two tenths. I lost out on the exit as well as you don't recharge the same way by going slow at that point. The car felt very good, much better rear grip, and we could go through the high-speed section quite decently. It was nice, I wanted to have the next two sets in Q2 to see where we could've been though.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:

“We’re just chipping away – I’m very happy at how the trackside team is working with help from the team back in the factories, both in Italy and the UK. I think we got the most out of the car and drivers, and we learned a couple of things, which is very important when defining the direction of development on this car. All this feedback and work we’re doing – even though ultimately the car isn’t fast enough, it’s all going into future development. While the sporting result today has been disappointing, less so about position and more looking at the gap to get into Q3, it’s big, lap-time-wise. We see where we need to improve, so we’re trying to get back into contention as soon as possible. It’s a positive day in terms of how we work together.”