Oliver Bearman stamped his authority on the Feature Race with his fourth win of the season.
Oliver Bearman delivered an impeccable performance to win today’s Formula 2 Feature Race at Monza. In this the 12th round of his debut season, the 18 year old English Ferrari Driver Academy student claimed his fourth win of the year, to consolidate sixth place in the standings and move up to second in the rookie driver classification, just one point behind the leader. “I was optimistic that I could do well,” said Bearman after an emotional podium ceremony. “I took a few risks to go for the lead and it worked well. My car was very quick but the gap I’d built over those behind was closed down four times because of the Safety Car periods. I kept calm and each of the restarts went well, when it was important not to let those behind get in my slipstream and I managed it. I am very, very happy. This win comes after some tricky times but I always believed in the work done with the FDA and the team and the win in front of the Monza crowd is a nice reward for all of us. It was great to see the Ferrari fans cheering for me from the stands.” With a sixth place in yesterday’s Sprint Race, Bearman is now on 130 points. Arthur Leclerc also scored points in the opening race of the weekend, finishing right behind Oliver, but today he had to retire having gone off at the first chicane.
Sprint Race. With the reversed grid, Bearman started from ninth place, while Leclerc lined up on the sixth row. The Safety Car was required immediately after the start, with Oliver twelfth ahead of Leclerc and it made a second appearance with ten laps remaining with Bearman tenth ahead of Arthur. After this second Safety Car, both drivers showed good pace, eventually finishing sixth and seventh. “It wasn’t a bad recovery considering that the opening laps was complicated with several drivers cutting the first chicane without giving back the positions,” explained Oliver. “We still managed to move up from. 12th position, even if with each lap, overtaking got more difficult than expected. The pace and feeling with the car was very good.”
Feature Race. Bearman got a good start, still second at the first chicane before tucking in behind Theo Pourchaire on the run down to Roggia and then overtaking to take the lead. The Safety Car came out on lap 5, when Leclerc went off at the first chicane and Bearman along with the rest of the leading group, took the opportunity to come in for the obligatory pit stop, with no change to the positions. When the race resumed, Oliver pulled out a lead of three seconds in a few laps over Pourchaire, but that was wiped out by another Safety Car. The race resumed for the final four laps with Bearman doing a perfect job of managing the restart, keeping the field at bay and taking the win behind yet another Safety Car.