Oliver Bearman has had an unexpected battle with an unkown Swedish karting driver. Image: Motorsport.com
Back in the small Swedish town of Varberg, local karter Elton Zevenwacht was busy reclaiming his lap record at a modest karting track — just as Bearman was competing in the Belgian GP sprint qualifying.
The drama started earlier this month when Bearman, on a short family holiday in Sweden ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, stumbled across the Varbergs Gokart circuit.
What began as a joke from his family turned into a full-blown mission: break the track record.
Over three days, Bearman gave it the full F1 treatment — tweaking tyre pressures, removing weight, cooling the engine with a leaf blower, and even enlisting slipstream help.
Eventually, the Haas driver succeeded, clocking a 28.97s lap to become the first driver to dip below the 29-second barrier — and taking the record from a then-unknown name on the board.
“I said he should be in F1!” Bearman laughed when talking about the previous record holder in Belgium.
That record had belonged to 23-year-old local Zevenwacht, who wasn’t even in town when the Brit showed up and unintentionally turned his vacation into a time-attack project.
Zevenwacht only found out what happened when the track’s owner, Christian Andersen, texted him a photo of Bearman and the leaderboard.
“I had no idea,” he told Motorsport.com. “I was away that week, so I couldn’t come and try to beat it right away. But I’m going to try to beat it tonight.”
And beat it he did. With Bearman occupied in Belgium, Zevenwacht rolled back into Varbergs Gokart and fired off a 28.95s, reclaiming his crown by just two hundredths of a second.
Ollie Bearman spent his F1 break trying to beat a track record at a go-kart track.
The guy he took it from just took it back, Elton Zevenwacht. 👏 #F1 pic.twitter.com/Xa5WHAHKjT
— Motorsport.com (@Motorsport) July 25, 2025
“I’m a competitive person, too,” Zevenwacht said. “But it was just really fun for me to hear that Ollie came to the track and had to work hard for the record.
“And with all these tactics – like cooling the engine and changing tires and stuff. But I respect that!
“I have no bad feelings or anything. It’s just really, really cool that Ollie had to work for the lap record.”
Bearman had earlier joked to media that the original record-holder must’ve been either “20 kilos” or benefited from arctic Swedish spring temperatures “when it’s like minus 20 there,” a statement to which Zevenwacht replied with “my weight is like 60 to 65 kilos. So I’m not 20 kilograms!”
A self-confessed F1 superfan who’s never raced competitively, Zevenwacht runs a roof and exterior cleaning business but drops by the track when he can.
His previous lap record — set during a two-hour “Le Mans” rental race last August — wasn’t even an intentional flyer, with the Swede saying he just “knows the track like the back of his hand.”
Still, beating an F1 driver’s time is no small flex — especially when that driver had to go full engineer mode just to shave a tenth.
“I’m just a Formula 1 fan,” Zevenwacht said. “So it was really, really cool to find out that I had the chance to kind of compete with him on the same track. And also that he had to work for the lap time! It’s a very cool feeling.”
For now, the scoreboard belongs to the local hero. But if Bearman’s previous obsession is anything to go by, a rematch in Varberg might just be a matter of time.