'It sucks' – Bearman laments 'silly, dumb' error as penalty undoes strong British GP Qualifying

Ollie Bearman has branded his mistake in final practice, which earned the Haas driver a 10-place grid penalty for the British Grand Prix as "silly" and "dumb" having then achieved his best Qualifying result.

The Briton, who will compete in his home Grand Prix for the first time this weekend, showed impressive pace at Silverstone on Saturday, eventually setting the eighth fastest lap, which was his best F1 Qualifying performance to date.

But the 20-year-old will start towards the back of the grid having suffered an unusual incident in the final practice session earlier in the morning, losing control of his Haas and hitting the wall on the entry to the pits.

The collision, which ripped the front wing from his car, took place under red flag conditions after Gabriel Bortoleto's accident left his Kick Sauber stranded.

The stewards noted that Bearman "did not drive slowly back to the pit lane" and did not consider cold tyres and brakes to be "a mitigating factor", as he was slapped with the grid penalty and four penalty points.

When asked about the penalty in the wake of his strong Qualifying performance, Bearman told Sky Sports F1: "It sucks. Quite honestly it's horrible, but I can only blame myself for that. It was my fault and a very silly error this morning.

"On the other hand I'm really glad we had a good Qualifying. First of all, to validate the team's hard work because we brought an upgrade this weekend and we were in Q3 on merit, so that's great.

"Qualifying has been our weak point for the past couple of events and now to be in Q3 on a track where there's lots of high-speed, which across the season has not been our strongest feature, is a great feeling. I know I'm going to start from last tomorrow but I'll see what I can do."

The 10-place grid drop is the second such penalty for Bearman this season, after the Haas driver passed Carlos Sainz's Williams under red flag conditions during a practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix.

Bearman so far has scored points in three races this term, with the last one coming in Bahrain back in April.

"We were doing a very slow lap during the red flag and then coming into the pit entry with very cold tyres and brakes I didn't really account for that," said Bearman on the incident in final practice.

"Just a silly, dumb error because when I hit the brakes they were stone-cold and so were the tyres and I lost it. Silly and really kicking myself. I wish I could go back and change it but we can't so let's learn from it and hopefully we can have a good race."