Haas demand Bearman qualifying review

Haas has requested that Oliver Bearman’s final qualifying lap for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix be reviewed.

The Briton’s final lap was quick enough for him to leave the previous knockout session, but the FIA deemed the session invalid on the grounds that it had been set up after a crash by Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

However, Haas and Bearman think that Bearman completed his lap before the red flag because the FIA stewards made a mistake.

The US-based team has pressed for a justification for what transpired as well as a plan to prevent similar occurrences in the future.

After discussions last night with the FIA, we have subsequently requested further written clarification regarding Ollie Bearman’s final Q1 lap in order for us to review more thoroughly, according to Haas in a statement on Sunday morning.

We asked the FIA/race control what steps they could take to ensure that this scenario was avoided in the future for the benefit of F1. We will be informed about comments once they are made.

The FIA continued to hold off on its original decision while the second qualifying session was delayed in order to review the situation.

Bearman clearly crossed the line to move up to 10th place just before the red flag was indicated, both on television footage and live-timing data, despite this.

The red flag was set at 16: 32 and 17. 6 seconds, according to an FIA statement.

The start gantry displayed the abort signal/red flag at 16:32 and 20.9 seconds.

The stewards were delayed in qualifying two so that they could consult with the relevant timing experts and verify their own accuracy by examining the underlining data.

The overarching goal was to determine whether Bearman had completed the lap before or after the red flag and whether the lap should have been disallowed to ensure the right drivers made it to Qualifying Two.

The orange “abort lap” lights were on the start-line gantry, despite the red flag not appearing on the boards at the start-finish line, according to a spokesman for the FIA.

The spokesman referred to article 37.6 of the FIA’s F1 sporting regulations, which states that marshals posts will display these lights in addition to red flags if a session needs to be halted.

We have a red light on our dash, Bearman said. That didn’t occur until about a year after I crossed the line.

When I crossed the line while watching the outboard video, it became obvious that there was no red flag present.