{"id":31717,"date":"2025-07-30T05:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T05:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31717\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T05:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T05:22:11","slug":"f1-news-mystery-swede-takes-down-f1-rookie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/31717\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 news: Mystery Swede takes down F1 rookie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BearmanKarting.jpg\" alt=\"Mystery Swede takes down F1 rookie Oliver Bearman\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOliver Bearman has had an unexpected battle with an unkown Swedish karting driver. Image: Motorsport.com<\/p>\n<p>Back in the small Swedish town of Varberg, local karter Elton Zevenwacht was busy reclaiming his lap record at a modest karting track \u2014 just as Bearman was competing in the Belgian GP sprint qualifying.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>What began as a joke from his family turned into a full-blown mission: break the track record.<\/p>\n<p>Over three days, Bearman gave it the full F1 treatment \u2014 tweaking tyre pressures, removing weight, cooling the engine with a leaf blower, and even enlisting slipstream help.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, the Haas driver succeeded, clocking a 28.97s lap to become the first driver to dip below the 29-second barrier \u2014 and taking the record from a then-unknown name on the board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said he should be in F1!\u201d Bearman laughed when talking about the previous record holder in Belgium.<\/p>\n<p>That record had belonged to 23-year-old local Zevenwacht, who wasn\u2019t even in town when the Brit showed up and unintentionally turned his vacation into a time-attack project.<\/p>\n<p>Zevenwacht only found out what happened when the track\u2019s owner, Christian Andersen, texted him a photo of Bearman and the leaderboard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had no idea,\u201d he told Motorsport.com. \u201cI was away that week, so I couldn\u2019t come and try to beat it right away. But I\u2019m going to try to beat it tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ollie Bearman spent his F1 break trying to beat a track record at a go-kart track.<\/p>\n<p>The guy he took it from just took it back, Elton Zevenwacht. \ud83d\udc4f <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/F1?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#F1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Xa5WHAHKjT\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/Xa5WHAHKjT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Motorsport.com (@Motorsport) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Motorsport\/status\/1948814050705743885?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 25, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m a competitive person, too,\u201d Zevenwacht said. \u201cBut it was just really fun for me to hear that Ollie came to the track and had to work hard for the record.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd with all these tactics \u2013 like cooling the engine and changing tires and stuff. But I respect that!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have no bad feelings or anything. It\u2019s just really, really cool that Ollie had to work for the lap record.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bearman had earlier joked to media that the original record-holder must\u2019ve been either \u201c20 kilos\u201d or benefited from arctic Swedish spring temperatures \u201cwhen it\u2019s like minus 20 there,\u201d a statement to which Zevenwacht replied with \u201cmy weight is like 60 to 65 kilos. So I\u2019m not 20 kilograms!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A self-confessed F1 superfan who\u2019s never raced competitively, Zevenwacht runs a roof and exterior cleaning business but drops by the track when he can.<\/p>\n<p>His previous lap record \u2014 set during a two-hour \u201cLe Mans\u201d rental race last August \u2014 wasn\u2019t even an intentional flyer, with the Swede saying he just \u201cknows the track like the back of his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, beating an F1 driver\u2019s time is no small flex \u2014 especially when that driver had to go full engineer mode just to shave a tenth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m just a Formula 1 fan,\u201d Zevenwacht said. \u201cSo 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\u2019s a very cool feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For now, the scoreboard belongs to the local hero. But if Bearman\u2019s previous obsession is anything to go by, a rematch in Varberg might just be a matter of time.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Bearman has had an unexpected battle with an unkown Swedish karting driver. Image: Motorsport.com Back in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,5242,85],"class_list":["post-31717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-oliver-bearman","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}