Lewis Hamilton Receives Heartwarming Message From Oliver Bearman After Azerbaijan GP Battle

Saajan Jogia | Sep 16, 2024

Oliver Bearman / Ferrari Press Image

Despite losing the battle for ninth position to Lewis Hamilton, reserve driver Oliver Bearman sent a heartwarming message to the 39-year-old driver, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to race alongside a seven-time world champion during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Bearman, set to join the Haas F1 team next season, was fulfilling reserve driver duties for Kevin Magnussen. Magnussen had been assigned a points penalty on his license following an incident with Alpine's Pierre Gasly during the Italian Grand Prix, forcing him to stay out of the race at Baku.

Finishing in tenth place behind Hamilton, Bearman expressed honor in fighting with an F1 legend to Autosport. He said:

"It’s not every race weekend you get to battle it out with a 7-time World Champion. Thanks for the fight, Sir Lewis.”

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Bearman was also kind to acknowledge Hamilton's efforts to leave him space while being overtaken by the Mercedes driver at the closing stages of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In the final ten laps, as Bearman pursued Franco Colapinto's Williams FW46, Hamilton seized his opportunity at Turn 1 to make a decisive pass. Despite Bearman's determined defense, he was ultimately unable to maintain his position through the tight exit of the 90-degree left-hander, allowing Hamilton to overtake him. He told Motorsport.com:

“Well, you know when you go around the outside that he’s going to leave you space, which is a nice feeling.

“Like 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.”

He added:

“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.”

The 19-year-old admitted that the Baku street race was challenging. He recognized that he was out of the points until the penultimate lap when Carlos Sainz's collision with Sergio Perez for second place allowed all drivers behind to advance by two positions. He added:

“It was a tough race. I wasn’t running in the points until the end because of the crash in front.

“The car was really fast and, in all honesty, I was really fast as well, I just lost a lot of time in the first stint just not driving very fast. I was just saving the tyres too much and that was not really necessary.

“I took too much of the experience from FP2 into the race but the track is so different in the race that you can almost forget the long runs from FP2 and start again. I put that down to experience.”