Damon Hill defends Ollie Bearman’s “ciaos”: “Say what you want, you’re not being bad”. 1996 F1 champion Damon Hill supported Ollie Bearman.

Ollie’s greetings
One of the funniest and most curious moments of the recent Chinese Grand Prix was gifted to us by Ollie Bearman. The young English talent from Haas managed to recover from 17th to 10th place in the race, then gaining further advantage from the disqualification of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to rise to P8 in the final order of arrival. Regardless of the excellent result, however, the 2005-born driver’s race went viral due to his unique ‘celebration’ during the overtakes. On more than one occasion, the American team’s representative greeted the drivers he overtook with a “hello” – almost mockingly.

Damon Hill defending him
Damon His gesture was appreciated by many young fans and became the center of a fun interview conducted after the race with Ollie Bearman and his teammate Esteban Ocon by colleagues from F1’s official TV channel. In that context, however, Oliver Bearman apologized for his somewhat playful way of celebrating the positions gained on the track, saying he “felt bad” for what he had done. Support came from a rather famous fellow countryman: 1996 world champion Damon Hill.

The former Williams star commented on the curious episode with a post on social media, defending Haas’ #87. “You’re not bad,” Damon Hill wrote, “say whatever you want.” A very understandable opinion: in a world of F1 that is often too standardized, being able to occasionally hear some off-the-beaten-path comments and a few sarcastic jokes can certainly only be good for the sport.