Oliver Bearman revealed he is “excited” for his second F1 race at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP and said the extra prep time makes it a very different situation to his debut at the Saudi Arabian GP in March.
On that Saturday, the young Brit received minimal notice when he was called by Ferrari to replace Carlos Sainz at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit although he still went onto impress, whilst for the race at the Baku City Circuit he already had a weeks’ notice with Kevin Magnussen’s ban.
This means he is in a different proposition to his Ferrari cameo as he gears up for his first full F1 weekend with Haas who he will race full-time for from 2025, ironically as he replaces the out-going Magnussen.
“It’s a great opportunity to build up my experience,” Bearman told members of the media, including Total-Motorsport.com, at the 2024 Azerbaijan GP. “Get a full weekend under my belt with some notice this time, I’ve knew it was coming which is helpful.
“Knowing that I’m going to race is a big help, also the fact that I’m going to do Free Practice 1 and FP2, that’s going to help me a lot just to build it up. And another street track, I’ll have time to build it up, not have to take any risk.
“Of course, I’ve been training hard, but I’ve been doing that anyway because I’m racing next year. I just want to build up step by step, because we have time to do that. In F2 you have to be straight on the pace and take a lot of risk with just one session.
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“We have three of them this weekend. So I just want to maximize myself and gain experience. It’s going to be the most sessions I’ve done in F1 in a single time. I’ve never done an FP2 session before. I’ve done all the others, but not an FP2 so it’ll just be a case of building it up.”
Bearman was preparing for Magnussen ban
Bearman was already the reserve driver for the Haas team meaning he had to be prepared to be called upon at any notice and that’s exactly what has happened with the ban of Magnussen at the 2024 Italian GP.
As a result, he became the first driver to be banned from a race since Romain Grosjean was forced to sit out the 2012 Italian GP after causing a multi-car crash at the Belgian GP when he was racing for Lotus F1.
But the 19-year-old revealed he was already expecting the Dane to sit out a race after racking up 11 points prior to the race at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza on September 1, declaring he ensured he was prepared for an F1 call up.
“My preparations have been kind of looking towards next year since the announcement that I will be racing with the team next year,” Bearman added to media. “And it has been a while that Kevin’s been close to a race ban.
“So I knew it was a potential possibility to jump in the car at any point. If I could have chosen, it would be one that doesn’t clash with Formula 2, but you don’t choose when to jump into F1.
“Every opportunity is one that you take but I’ve been really preparing for next year, and part of that means that I’m ready also now. So it’s another great opportunity to show how I’ve improved and what I can do.”
