Oliver Bearman: 'Looking forward to have that target off my back' amid race ban risk

Haas rookie Oliver Bearman is looking forward to getting the target off his back after the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend.

Having racked up 10 penalty points on his superlicence in the last 12 months, Bearman is just two points away from an automatic race ban. But the British driver will drop two of the 10 points on 3 November, which will come as a relief to him.

"It's been a tough few races on that side of things, but it hasn't necessarily meant that the results haven't been there," Bearman explained to the media in Mexico. "So it's not a big issue, but I'm looking forward to have that target off my back, hopefully."

When asked if he had softened his approach to racing to avoid a race ban, Bearman added: "I never thought my approach on track was stiff. I have 10 points, and eight of those, four I definitely deserved in Silverstone, but that's not a racing thing, that's just a stupidity thing. And then I got another four in Monaco, which is also one that can be argued either way, in my opinion. It's not like I've been taking people out."

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The Haas driver expanded on what he learned from the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

"It's not necessarily one thing, it's just learning the difficulties of F1, and that example in Silverstone is we're told to push the pit entry as much as possible because you can gain a second in the race by doing that.

"But then there needs to be a bit of... It's not like a one-size-fits-all approach, you need to be adaptive, and that's just a silly error, and those silly errors are things that I never do again.

Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

"I think that was very silly, but there's been a lot of mistakes that I've made, but I'm not putting myself down about it, I'm just understanding that if you want to be the best one day, you need to make these mistakes and get through them, and the important thing is that you learn from them and continue to improve."

Oliver Bearman penalty points

2024 Brazilian Grand Prix (3 November 2024) - Two points for "causing a collision with Car 43 in Turn 10" during the grand prix.

2025 Monaco Grand Prix (23 May 2025) - Two points for overtaking Car 55 under red flag conditions during qualifying.

2025 British Grand Prix (5 July 2025) - Four points for "failure to comply with a red flag" during FP3.

2025 Italian Grand Prix (7 September 2025) - Two points for colliding with Car 55 at Turn 4 during the grand prix.

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