(Motorsport-Total.com) – Oliver Bearman says that after his severe crash in Suzuka, he couldn’t walk properly for a few days, but it was enough to move his gas pedal foot, so a start in Bahrain would not have been in danger if the race had taken place: “Yes, definitely. I was already in the simulator on Wednesday,” he says.
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But he does not mean the Formula 1 simulator from Haas, but training for a different kind of race: “I came back on Monday evening and on Wednesday I then trained for an endurance race with my brother on the weekend,” says Bearman.
“We wouldn’t have had a [Formula 1] race that weekend anyway, but my brother and I had this other endurance race ahead of us. I had to get back up to speed because he had been training the whole time, so I needed a few days to catch up with him,” says the Brit.
He noticed that despite the injuries he could drive quite well: “It was the right leg, so it is only responsible for the gas pedal. Even in the first days when I – let’s say – couldn’t walk normally, I could still drive because you only need the ankle for that.”
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Bearman did not sustain any serious injuries in the accident in Suzuka, only a bruise on the knee. “That was a bit unfortunate because I had actually planned to ride a lot of bike during the break, but in the first week I had to go to physio and take care of the swelling going down and so on,” he says.
“But after that, to be honest, I recovered very quickly. Nothing was broken, the ligaments were fine, everything was great,” says the Haas driver, who naturally also expects no restrictions for the Formula 1 race in Miami.
In the car itself, Bearman mainly thought of his family in Suzuka and that it probably wasn’t great for them to see those images. “But that’s exactly why I tried to get out of the car immediately. Probably I should have waited a bit there to sort my thoughts a little.”
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