Bearman says “iRacing line” helped him to surprise Q3 appearance · RaceFans

Oliver Bearman admitted he was surprised to reach Q3 at Suzuka and said he benefited from using the “iRacing line.”

The Haas driver said he was surprised some drivers did not take the same approach as he did of staying tight to the pit wall at the end of their flying laps.

However he admitted he took it too far on his final lap. He suffered a snap of oversteer at the exit of the chicane after running too far over the second kerb, then clipped the wall as he accelerated towards the finishing line.

“I had a snap in the chicane,” Bearman explained, “I was taking more and more kerb every single lap, and the last lap was a little bit too much.

“Every time I was doing it, I was gaining more and lap time, so I thought, why not take a little more?”

Hugging the pit wall allowed him to gain a little more time – until he touched it. “I was going as tight as I could to the wall,” he told the official F1 channel. “I don’t know why not everyone is doing that.”

“I was doing it since FP1. I thought that’s the real iRacing line there.”

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Bearman is driving at Suzuka for the first time in F1, having taken part in a Super Formula test session at the track during the off-season in order to learn it. He only set the 19th-fastest time over the three practice sessions and his team mate Esteban Ocon was eliminated in the first round of qualifying, so reaching Q3 came as a shock to him.

“It was quite an unexpected result. I was really happy to be in Q2, so you can imagine how happy I was to be in Q3.

“We were [estimating we would be] on the cut-off, from our predictions prior to the session, to be in Q2. So when that lap finished and I think I popped up to eighth at the end of that Q2 lap, and then slowly back down and I just about managed to sneak into Q3, it was great.”

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