Yahoo Autos Oliver Bearman Does Not Need to Rush Into F1
On Friday, Oliver Bearman's 11th-place qualifying finish on debut in place of an ailing Carlos Sainz Jr. was the first interesting footnote in a season that had so far been defined by continuity and continued Max Verstappen dominance. Bearman stepped it up with a strong run to seventh on race day, instantly the most impressive top-car debut since George Russell's near-win with Mercedes at Bahrain in 2020. The Ferrari driver's race comes with one major distinction: While Russell had been racing in F1 with Williams for almost two full years before he stepped into the Mercedes, the 18-year-old Bearman had never raced above the Formula 2 level before his first run in a Ferrari.
Naturally, that instantly makes Bearman one of the most exciting Formula 1 prospects since Russell and Charles Leclerc came through Formula 2 in the late 2010s. While his junior formula career has been impressive, it is nothing compared to what he did in the Ferrari. Racing well for position at the F1 level is a purely theoretical thing until you actually do it. No string of F2 victories is going to compare to a race where Bearman drove a good-not-great car well in an actual on-track fight on F1 tires against Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, and George Russell.
It puts the Ferrari junior driver on everyone's radar, not just for the 2025 offseason and beyond but as a potential mid-season replacement this year. Teams like Haas, Williams, RB, and Sauber came into 2024 with drivers who were seemingly extended only in an absence of better options. That leaves about a quarter of the grid already on a hot seat, and now Bearman joins RB reserve Liam Lawson as the second young driver outside of the sport who has already proven themselves competitive in an F1 car. His status as a Ferrari junior driver complicates the process of getting to another team, but he has no real path to replace either Hamilton or Leclerc any time soon and Oscar Piastri's high-profile extraction from Alpine proved that such a thing can be done on short notice with creative enough attorneys.
Bearman has a reasonably strong junior formula resume, but his numbers do not match the most elite in the world. Both Leclerc and Russell won titles in both Formula 3 and Formula 2 on debut, a feat matched by Piastri. McLaren driver Lando Norris accomplished his own honor, skipping what we now call F3 to grab an impressive second on debut in F2 behind Russell. Bearman, by contrast, finished third in his first F3 season and followed that up with sixth in his first year in F2.
In other words, Bearman's early returns are not those of an elite prospect. He is a clear future F1 driver, but missed the chance to win the laurels typically earned by a future star in weak F3 and F2 fields the past two seasons. That explains why Ferrari did not seriously consider him for a ride in 2024 or 2025 just yet, but the impressive run this weekend at just 18 years old proves that he has more than enough potential to get a real shot elsewhere. If his contract allows, impatient teams may start making offers sooner rather than later.
Ferrari just extended current team leader Charles Leclerc and signed Lewis Hamilton to replace its one vulnerable driver. That means Bearman is not likely to join the team he came up through the ladder with any time soon, but he could wait out the tail end of Hamilton's career at a Ferrari-affiliated team like Haas if the operations agree to the sort of loan that Leclerc and George Russell had at Sauber and Williams, respectively. That could mean four or five years at a bad team waiting for a chance in a red car, though. Bearman's better option may be an exit from the Ferrari ecosystem.
Some of those opportunities outside the Scuderia are not particularly good, including most if not all of the seats that could open up mid-season. An 18-year-old with a promising career in front of him should not necessarily jump into a role at a program like Haas unless he either believes that the team is headed toward major improvement or thinks that he can do enough in the car to prove his value to a larger operation.
Rather than wait for the first opportunity that becomes available this season, Bearman should wait patiently to see what opens up and take the best opportunity in the 2025 offseason. That could be a role as a long-term face of Sauber's Audi program. It could be the open seat at Mercedes, which has generally been tied to either a lukewarm field of veteran drivers or a hasty promotion of young and unprepared super-prospect Andrea Kimi Antonelli. After Lewis Hamilton's sudden switch from Mercedes to Ferrari upended the idea that previously-known contracts mean anything, it could even be an open seat at Red Bull or McLaren.
Until then, Bearman's job is to win the F2 title. Ironically, his F1 appearance in Saudi Arabia may have made that particular assignment much harder. After failing to score points at Bahrain and being forced to miss the F2 round this past weekend after qualifying on pole, he is now a significant 47 points behind 2024 F2 points leader Zane Maloney with 12 rounds left to run.
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