Formula 1 rookie Oliver Bearman was shocked by the conditions he experienced during Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Haas reserve driver, who made his third grand prix start last weekend, was alarmed by the poor visibility he encountered as heavy rain fell during the race. He gave the team a series of increasingly urgent warnings over the conditions before the Safety Car was sent out due to the heavy rain on lap 30.
“How are we allowed to race like this?” Bearman told race engineer Mark Slade at one point. “Someone is going to crash, big-time.”
“Come on, talk to the the FIA, this is really dangerous,” he added. “I’m trying not to die.”
Bearman wasn’t the only driver to predict a crash would occur. Franco Colapinto lost control of his car during the Safety Car period, which prompted the race to be red-flagged.
Like Bearman, Colapinto is a newcomer to F1: This was his sixth grand prix. Shortly before his crash, when he saw the state of the track as he rejoined following his pit stop on lap 30, he exclaimed “oh my God” on his radio.
But it wasn’t only the less experienced drivers who were surprised racing was allowed to continue as long as it did in such bad weather. Veterans of hundreds of grands prix voiced similar fears.
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During the Safety Car period Carlos Sainz Jnr told his race engineer Riccardo Adami “We cannot race right now. I cannot keep it on-track in Safety Car, and the Safety Car is faster than me.” Later he added: “I cannot even go fast on the straights.”
The Brazilian Grand Prix weekend was heavily disrupted by wet weather. Saturday’s qualifying session was postponed until the following morning and the race start time was unusually brought forward, by an hour and a half, due to forecasts of severe rain during its originally scheduled time slot.
Bearman’s radio messages
Bearman was running 14th as the conditions started to worsen, then gained a place when Sainz ran onto the run-off at Subida do Lado:
| Lap 22/69 | |
| Bearman | If the rain gets heavy, I might struggle to restart on this tyre. |
| Slade | Copy that. |
| Bearman | Sainz went off. |
| Slade | Copy that. |
| Lap 23/69 | |
| Bearman | Tell Nico [Hulkenberg] it’s quite slippery at turn four. People keep going off. |
| Slade | Copy. |
Following a collision with Colapinto earlier in the race, Bearman had to serve a 10-second time penalty, which…
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