One year ago you would have struggled to find a critic of Ollie Bearman when he made his Formula 1 debut stepping in mid-weekend for Ferrari to score points in Saudi Arabia.
But 12 months on the young man himself, now a fully-fledged grand prix driver at Haas, is dissatisfied with that effort.
“I look back at that race and I kind of kick myself because I know that, given that same opportunity again, I would be up there,” Bearman tells The Race.
“I wish I could have that opportunity again to show what I truly can do. Because they don't come around very often - and just by not knowing some things that I do now, I lost bits of performance in certain places.
“Of course, my lack of experience in the car showed, especially in qualifying. But sometimes I kick myself because I know that if I had that again, I feel like I would execute a really good job.”
To qualify 11th and finish seventh that weekend having not driven the car before final practice showed an encouraging mix of raw materials: he coped well with pressure, learned quickly, showed his speed and executed the race well in the circumstances.
Those materials have been refined in the 12 months since, hence Bearman wishes he could have the chance again. But if he maintains the trajectory of his three substitute appearances in 2024 and his full rookie season in 2025, returning to Ferrari will be a matter of when, not if.
While the disappointment of a crash-laden first weekend in Australia stung Bearman, and shocked Haas given it thinks so highly of the 19-year-old, he has emphatically bounced back, scored points three times in the four races since, and outqualified his very experienced team-mate Esteban Ocon twice (it’s 2-2 in comparable sessions).
What has stood out early on is how well Bearman has, since Melbourne, coped with some of the car’s limitations and tricky moments. Ocon’s peaks have been great but at the demanding high-speed tracks in Japan and Saudi Arabia, he was clearly second-best to Bearman all weekend and uncomfortable in a car that can still be vulnerable to the aerodynamic weakness that wrecked its season opener.
And Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu reveals a fascinating detail for the level at which Bearman can adjust his driving around the feedback the car gives him.
“He has [a particular driving style], but he still can drive around it,” Komatsu tells The Race.
“This is a very strong part of him. But if he is not careful, that could be the problem as well, because sometimes he doesn't even know that he's driving around it.
“He is just highly, highly capable. So, we just need to work with that. That's not necessarily his fault. It's actually amazing that he can drive around it, like Fernando Alonso.
“When I used to work with him a long time ago [at Renault], he could do that. But he complains a lot about the car in FP1, FP2, then in FP3 he realises, ‘OK, this is what I got. I drive around it'.
“But Ollie’s a rookie. Fernando Alonso is already a world champion.
"He [Bearman] certainly has the ability to be able to do that. Not many drivers can. So that's a good thing to have.
“You are talking really fine tuning. So he's amazing to work with, really enjoying it.”
‘I’m addicted to knowing more’
A strong body of work in early 2025 is no surprise given Komatsu has raved about Bearman’s potential since his first Friday practice outing with Haas in late 2023, in Mexico.
But there are new details about Bearman’s approach and execution emerging because this is the first chance to see him piece together F1 weekends rather than impress sporadically.
One example is, having noticed how well Ocon was able to translate his feeling into the car into feedback for the engineers, Bearman’s own feedback is now said to be at a similar level. And already from round one Ocon said he was impressed by Bearman’s technical understanding.
This is something the new generation of drivers are generally good with, because so much more of their early development encompasses data analysis and simulator work. But there’s a personal aspect to it as well.
“Technical understanding is step one to getting the most out of a car,” says Bearman.
“So it's really a non-negotiable for me in stepping into a new car, you need to understand what's under the skin.
“It definitely helps having done a lot of sim work and testing and all of that stuff. But I think it's also just…almost an addiction to the sport.
“I spend my life reading about the team's races last year - what went well, what didn't go well, what they tried on the set-up, what they didn't try, what they would have tried. I'm reading about all the races, all of the team’s reports.
“It's just…I'm addicted to knowing more, and it's so interesting to me that I want to keep looking and I know that in some way, it's going to help me get more out of this car.
“Even if it's not even half a tenth it's worth it, because the field is so tight.”
Bearman “never got down to fine tuning in F1 last year” because the nature of his appearances meant they were isolated events. “Now I'm already at the stage where I'm focusing on the smaller details to make sure I'm ready for the race weekend,” he says.
“I'm already speaking with the team about future races. I'm already having calls with them all the time about the car developments and stuff like that, because I know that that's going to directly impact our performance.”
Komatsu says Bearman absorbs information “like a sponge” and is “completely open” to feedback and recommendations from the engineering team. He “doesn’t put his guard up”, which Komatsu has seen others do because they think they know best.
“He's always open to suggestions, looking at evidence, and then seeing what he can learn,” says Komatsu.
“If you don't have that curiosity, hunger to learn, you’ve got no chance in this kind of environment.
“Another dimension is I don't think you should underestimate the positivity he adds to the team.
“He's such a positive character. His body language is positive. His tone of voice is positive. He really lifts people up.
“Then when he is disappointed, the way he conducts himself in a debrief is not too depressive.
“Yes, he says he could have done better. If he's not happy with the car, he tells you he's not happy with the car. But he says it with a body language, tone of the voice, that is not doom and gloom.
“There's a lot to be said about that. For the people around him, he is quite uplifting. He’s actually a very good guy to motivate people.”
Remembering his main limitation
Komatsu says Bearman is “living up to our expectations". When The Race suggests they were very high, Komatsu replies: “Yes! Sometimes too high. I have to sometimes remind myself that he is still a rookie.” This remains his main limitation and there are a couple of specific examples where it has bit him.
First, there’s what happened in Melbourne, crashing in FP1 and then FP3. The FP1 crash was probably rookie exuberance, a consequence of what Bearman describes as a natural tendency to get in the car and “push and push and push” instantly.
Shunting again in FP3 is what both Bearman and Komatsu really regret: a careless dropping of the outside rear wheel onto the grass at the curved entry to Turn 11, on his first flying lap having missed FP2 due to the rebuild job, and at a time Haas desperately needed mileage to evaluate a big aerodynamic problem it had noticed with Ocon on Friday.
Bearman says: “I just had to have a few reminders of myself - ‘what session I am in at the moment? I’m in FP1. It doesn't matter if I don't execute a perfect lap, because it's only FP1.’
“I think part of that was coming from Formula 2, where at the end of the FP1 [the sole practice] you need to be all in and fully confident to then put the car on the limit for qualifying.
"But in F1 we have the beauty of FP1, FP2 and FP3. So there's no rush to give it everything in a high-speed corner, because you have so many opportunities to do that.”
Less dramatic was in Bahrain, which Bearman picked as one of his mandatory FP1 sessions to miss so a rookie driver could fill in. Missing the knowledge of how the track changed from daytime to evening in FP2, combined with a chronic brake issue that dogged him and Haas pretty much all weekend, left Bearman a long way off where he needed to be come qualifying.
He was eliminated in Q1, while Ocon made it all the way to Q3. Komatsu admits he should have noticed the “the degree of problems” Bearman had, and adjusted his qualifying plan to give him an extra run in Q1: “I sometimes have to really remind myself that he's not a seasoned veteran: ‘This is a big condition change, on top of that he's not happy with the brakes, let's give him three runs.’ That's what we should have done.”
Even so, Bearman’s lower points - the Australia crashes, a Q1 exit in China because a timing mix-up meant he did not get his final lap in, then Bahrain qualifying - have been immediately followed by a strong response. He was solid in the wet Melbourne race despite so little mileage that weekend, and drove extremely well measured races in China and Bahrain to go from near the back of the grid to the points in both.
The response to Australia has been particularly important. Bearman admits it was “mentally difficult” but now “it’s not on my mind in any way anymore”.
“I can easily see how two bad weekends can start to create a downward spiral and be dangerous,” he says.
“So to instantly come back and remove that is a great feeling. But even after that, I never have doubts, because I proved to myself so many times that I have what it takes.”
A good worry for Haas
Bearman’s not joined the grid full-time with the kind of doubt or criticism that has accompanied others. But there was at least some discourse about the merits of his promotion given he only finished 12th in F2 in a very difficult 2024 season for his Prema team - especially as rookie team-mate Kimi Antonelli fared better.
Fortunately the quality of Bearman’s work in previous seasons and crucially the F1 outings he had spoke for his ability more than the unusual F2 struggles. But Bearman noticed it fostered a feeling among some that his F1 promotion was preordained regardless of what he did in the series that’s meant to be where drivers earn their F1 chance.
“It was definitely strange to have such a difficult year in F2 and I wasn't happy with that,” Bearman says.
“My personal goal was to win the championship last year, and that never came to fruition. So that sucked, honestly. And, of course, it was difficult to step into F1 with people saying that I don't deserve it based on my performances in F2.
“But at the end of the day, there's a reason I'm here. I wasn't the one who decided that I should be here. They’ve seen a lot more than what the onlooker can see. And clearly they believe that I'm deserving of it, and that's all I can really show. I want to continue to prove that.”
Bearman didn’t doubt his F1 credentials himself. He says “my only time that I was a little unsure about my ability was before my first ever FP1 in Mexico in 2023”, and “a little bit of that this time last year in Jeddah”.
But his pace meant “those question marks were squashed pretty early on”, and surely the same must go for any questions that others still had. As far as can be shown five races into an F1 season, Bearman’s had the quintessential Haas midfield experience: points on his good days, out in Q1 on his bad days.
He is now delivering on the obvious potential he had coming into this season to make the most of his opportunity - whatever that may be in a very tight midfield battle.
“I want to continue to improve my level, continue to get the most out of the car, continue to give the best feedback that I can,” he says.
“And if I don't do that - and Bahrain wasn't the best execution from my side over a weekend - that gives me another opportunity to improve.
“It's cool to see that we're the underdogs, and I think we can achieve a lot. Of course, it's difficult to say, with the midfield being so tight, exactly what we can achieve, but we just want to continue improving from where we were.
“Motivation is really contagious, so it's a great feeling to have that and to see it with other people. I hope we can just keep learning and keep improving. and who knows where the ceiling is.”
This season it won’t be much higher than what’s been achieved already. Bigger picture, though, Bearman is on a path to better things than midfield scraps.
And if he gets as good as Haas thinks he can be, with Alonso-like levels of driving ability and tremendous capacity to improve, Haas could lose him quite quickly.
“Yeah,” Komatsu agrees. “But we’ve got him solid for a certain period of time.
“And if that’s a worry it’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
