27/03/2025
NEWS STORY
Oliver Bearman has joined Fred Vasseur in suggesting that team radio broadcasts are being manipulated.
The Ferrari boss hit out at FOM, claiming that the original radio call in Shanghai in which Lewis Hamilton suggested changing positions with his teammate was omitted, while a subsequent call in which he said it was not the time to swap was broadcast, thereby suggesting that the Briton was at odds with his engineer Riccardo Adami.
This, of course, came in the wake of the somewhat fractious exchanges between the pair during the season opener.
Now, Oliver Bearman has also criticised the broadcasts, claiming that something he'd said earlier in the race was actually broadcast in the moments after he'd passed Carlos Sainz.
"Ciao!" the youngster was heard to say as he passed the struggling Williams driver on Lap 35, however Bearman insists he actually made the remark a couple of laps earlier after passing Liam Lawson and Jack Doohan.
"I feel really, really bad for saying that," Bearman told Channel 4. "They messed me around, because I didn't say that to Carlos.
"They played it at a strange time because I didn't say that to Carlos," he insisted.
"I said it to Lawson and the Alpine because I switched them back," he continued. "And that's always the most fun move, I'm sure you can agree, for a racing driver.
"I went to the outside, they went deep, so I got them on the exit, and that's always cool.
"I just wanted to clear that one up. It wasn't against Carlos," he explained.
"But yeah, I had a lot of fun with that, a lot of confidence on the brakes. I had a little lock-up trying to overtake Stroll at one point. But then I learned from it, and after that, I was, was really enjoying it."
Starting 17th on the grid, the Briton finished 10th on the road but was subsequently promoted to 8th following the disqualification of the Ferrari pair.