Oliver Bearman has had a disastrous 2024 season with just two caveats… from the small matter of an F1 debut for Ferrari and signing a full-time contract with Haas.
Billed as a championship contender after finishing sixth in his debut F2 season, Bearman‘s languishing in 14th having only scored points in four races from 12 this year and behind a teammate who had never even raced in F3.
Yet right from his historically successful 2021 when Bearman became the first driver to win two Formula 4 titles in the same season and was signed to the Ferrari Driver Academy, there’s been an air of inevitability about this moment and he’s performed every time he’s stepped in an F1 car.
Indeed, he also sits 14th in the F1 drivers’ championship after 11 races solely thanks to that one result in Saudi Arabia and that was clearly enough for Ferrari and Haas to invest their future into Oliver Bearman.
“I do feel like the F1 running carried a lot of weight, of course the race in Saudi but even my free practices and all my testing has always been going pretty well, so that for me carried a bit more weight,” Bearman told journalists including Total-Motorsport.com at Silverstone.
“And I think for the people that mattered it also carried a bit more weight. But yeah there’s no way of hiding behind the fact that in F2 it continues to be a little bit difficult and that always leaves a bit of a question mark in the back of your mind, so I’m happy.”
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It’s been a much longer road than just the six months of 2024 though – a fact Bearman himself referenced as looked back on a rather low key big moment:
“Honestly, I should’ve filmed it or something because I just signed it and that was it. But it was a relief and excitement, those last 10, 11, 12 years of my life that I’ve been working so hard for this, all the sacrifices I’ve had to make, I feel like they’ve paid off by signing a piece of paper.”
Oliver Bearman: from Trent Valley karting to Haas F1
After karting success on national, continental and worldwide levels, Bearman made his mark in his second season of single-seaters to devastating effect.
He dominated two of the highest-profile F4 championships in Germany and Italy – winning the latter by over 100 points. It didn’t go unnoticed locally either, with Ferrari signing him up as a junior immediately and a 16-year-old Bearman leaving his Essex grammar school to continue his career in Modena – less than 50 miles down the road from Imola.
Now under the wing of the usually all-conquering Prema, Bearman made the bold of skipping Formula Regional and jumping straight onto the F1 support package in Formula 3.
There his season turned on home soil, as Bearman took just three rounds to bed into his new surroundings and roared to third place and just seven points down on sophomore champion Victor Martins, whom the Brit outscored 88-62 in the final five weekends of the season.
Having secured his FIA Super Licence, Bearman didn’t wait around and made his mark in more ways than one in 2023. He became the first driver to win both races of an F2 weekend in just his fourth round, and more importantly made his F1 debut with Haas – the work that truly won him his future at the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Of course I’ve felt like I’ve been performing well since the beginning of free practices,” Bearman added.
“And honestly, every time I’ve driven with Haas I’ve always got out of the car feeling like I put a good image of myself, I performed in a way that I was proud of, which is important to me.
“I knew that if I continued to do that, hopefully I would do enough to get an F1 seat. And I’m happy that it’s confirmed and it’s finally the case.”
Bearman enjoyed his best result of the F2 season last weekend in Austria, and will hope to continue that resurgence at Silverstone in front of his home fans.
But it will also be his first chance to impress as an official Haas driver-in-waiting with Bearman taking the wheel of the VF-24 in FP1 just a few days after signing on the dotted line:
“It was finally confirmed after the Red Bull Ring on Sunday, because in F1 until you put a pen on a piece of paper it’s not really official so I knew that we were working towards it and that we were pretty much getting there for a while.
“You can never celebrate too soon, because F1 is a fast-moving world and you’re only as good as your last race so I was relieved when it finally came about and I shared that moment with my manager who’s been with me all the way, and that was quite an emotional moment.”
And if Bearman‘s career is anything to go by so far, it’s just one of many emotional F1 moments to come.
