Oliver Bearman’s Australian GP has suffered another setback with confirmation the Haas driver will start the season-opening Grand Prix from the pit lane.

Having impressed last year when he made three substitute appearances, one for Ferrari and two for Haas, and scored in two of those, Bearman’s chances of a top-ten result in Melbourne may depend on the weather.

Oliver Bearman ‘required to start from pit lane’

Crashing in the weekend’s opening practice, Bearman caused significant damage to his VF-25 that meant he wasn’t able to take part in Friday’s second session.

FP3 didn’t any better as he spun and beached the car before a “gearbox” problem forced him out of Q1 without setting a lap time.

“It’s a petty unforgiving circuit and two seemingly small errors giving big consequences and missing out on all of my running,” Bearman said, holding up his hand.

“It was clumsiness from my side to make these errors, honestly, and that’s not good enough.

“And then of course the gearbox issue and the qualifying pretty much sums up what we’ve had so far.”

Now it has emerged he’ll have to start from the pit lane after Haas changed suspension set-up on his car.

A breach of Article 40.9 a) of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations, the FIA document read: “The setup of the suspension has been changed while under Parc Ferme.

“MoneyGram Haas F1 Team changed the setup of the suspension of Car 87 under Parc Ferme, this not being in accordance with Article 40.9 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.

“Car 87 is therefore required to start the Race from pit lane.”

The good news for Bearman is Formula 1 is expecting a wet race on Sunday and none of the drivers have done any wet laps in their new F1 2025 cars.

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