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SILVERSTONE, England -- Haas driver Oliver Bearman received a 10-place grid penalty and four penalty points for crashing under red flags in the final practice session at the British Grand Prix. Bearman lost control of his car under braking for the pit entry despite the session being suspended following Gabriel Bortoleto's accident in the final minutes. Following final practice, the Briton went on to go eighth quickest -- a career best -- in Saturday's qualifying session, but he starts 18th on the grid after the penalty. After qualifying, when asked whether getting through to Q3 helped soften the blow of the penalty, Bearman said: "It's not a relief. We were doing a very slow lap under the red flag, and then going into the pit entry with very cold tyres and brakes; I didn't really account for that. "So yeah, just a silly, dumb error, because when I hit the brakes, they were stone cold, and so were the tyres, and I lost it. So silly, and really kicking myself. I wish I could go back and change it, but we can't, so let's learn from it and hopefully we'll have a good race." Red flags are used to suspend a session and require all drivers to slow down and return to the pit lane. The stewards noted that Bearman was travelling faster on his pit lane entry under the red flag than he had on previous laps. "Car 87 had slowed down for the red flag and as he was approaching Turn 15 accelerated significantly to race pace and entered the pit entry road at 260kph. He lost control of the car in the pit entry road and crashed into the barriers. "Art. 37.6 (a) of the Formula 1 Sporting Regulations and Art. 2.5.4.1 (b) of Appendix H of the International Sporting Code require that when a red flag is shown 'all cars must immediately reduce speed and proceed slowly back to the pit lane'. "It is beyond doubt that the driver of Car 87 did not proceed slowly back to the pit lane when he accelerated to simulate entering into the pit entry road under race conditions. In fact, we looked at a previous in-lap under normal racing conditions and found that he was faster in this lap, under a red flag. "To make matters worse, he lost control of the car and crashed into the barriers while at speed. The driver informed us that he misjudged the fact that his brakes were not warm because the lap was done slowly, due to the red flag. While this may have been a factor contributing to the crash, we did not consider it to be a mitigating factor. "We accordingly penalised him per the penalty guidelines to a drop of 10 grid places with 4 penalty points." The four penalty points bring Bearman's total on his superlicence to eight. If a driver receives 12 penalty points in a 12-month period, it results in a one-race ban. Bearman finished the final practice session at his home grand prix in sixth place.
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