Despite damage to his car, Ferrari junior drives to pole in Baku

Oliver Bearman has clinched his first pole position in Formula 2. The Ferrari junior impressed in Baku with a fastest time in free practice and qualifying. How come the Brit is so good here in particular?

For Bearman, the F2 season got off to a difficult start. As part of the Ferrari training programme, he was one of the drivers on whom many eyes were focused, but due to various circumstances things did not want to work out for the rookie for the time being, until Azerbaijan. Here, suddenly everything was right, with a fastest time in both sessions run on Friday.

''It's a good start to the weekend. Qualifying was a good performance. This track is all about getting the confidence. There are a lot of heavy braking zones where you have to be on the limit, but of course there is a wall there. You need to find the limit without going over it. This track punishes you more than others" Bearman replied to GPblog's question.

Bearman did go over that limit. In his first run, he hit the wall and thought his session was over. The team sent him out again anyway, as the track kept getting faster. Despite damage to his car, the team assumed Oliver would still be faster in his second run.

As it turned out, Bearman not only improved his own time, but set a time with his damaged car that nobody could touch. "I have a lot of confidence in the car to be strong in the braking zones and I think that's key to be strong at this track." concluded the Briton.

On Saturday, the sprint race is scheduled for the F2 drivers first. Due to the reverse grid order, Bearman will start that race from tenth position. He will start the main race on Sunday from pole.