What Bearman's first real F1 stumble means for him and Haas

Ollie Bearman having one of Formula 1’s only 100% point-scoring records in 2024 inevitably had an asterisk attached given it related to just two race appearances.

It stood as a marker of the quality of his super-sub appearances for Ferrari in Saudi Arabia and Haas in Azerbaijan but is no longer valid even though it was only being used ironically.

The perfect start is gone after the 19-year-old suffered the first stumble of his fledgling F1 career in a Brazilian Grand Prix that tested and caught out even some of F1’s most experienced and successful drivers.

Bearman’s last-gasp call-up to replace the unwell Kevin Magnussen for a second time at Haas on the Friday morning at Interlagos ultimately accelerated his grand prix racing education more than any normal race weekend ever could.

He experienced a sprint event format for the first time, learned a new track, contested qualifying and the grand prix in the same day after stormy weather prompted an abnormal schedule change, and got to the flag in a chaotic race.

For Bearman’s learning curve, and the team’s too, this was invaluable given Bearman’s got a full-time drive with Haas next year. His Azerbaijan Grand Prix appearance was already a useful ‘race zero’ of 2025 but Bearman’s reserve season has turned out to be so unusually prolific, Brazil ended up being another bonus.

Ferrari’s Fred Vasseur described it as a “more than difficult” weekend to step into but was “a good lesson, a good experience”, and Bearman’s Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu went even further.

“This is a priceless experience for him, and for us,” said Komatsu.

“Yes, the pain is that we should have, still with this car, scored points, but we didn't. But that's the price we paid, right?

“Ollie’s incredibly talented. He's an incredibly fast learner. But you cannot expect to throw him in last minute – I mean, what he did on Friday was remarkable. Remarkable.

“I don't think I can expect him to deal with these conditions and score points. Still the potential he showed was great.”

‘I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH’

Bearman’s no longer eligible for the post-season young driver test in Abu Dhabi as he’s now competed in three grands prix. That’s a whole day of running that’s been sacrificed – but realistically, that is not as beneficial as the track time Bearman got in Brazil.

He’s learned his harshest lessons yet, which he’ll need to learn from while having the resilience to shrug off any disappointment and not let impact his confidence. As both he and Haas did probably miss out on more points in Brazil.

And given this was a race in which Haas has narrowly lost sixth place in the constructors’ championship due to Alpine’s shock double podium, even a few points could be very costly by the end of the season. That’s not something to be held against Bearman, but it’s a price Haas needed to be – and was – willing to pay.

There is no doubt Bearman should emerge from a mistake-laden race as a better driver, and Haas might have picked up a thing or two as well.

When Bearman crossed the line on Sunday afternoon, he apologised for “too many mistakes” in a “f*****g hard race” – one that began with a poor getaway in the wet, was set back early on by a 10-second penalty for clumsily rear-ending Franco Colapinto (and spinning), featured a spin across the grass at the final corner trying to catch the back of the queue before the restart after the red flag, then another spin (this time briefly into the barrier), and one final brief off-track excursion at the final corner again.

Those were the headline errors, but like almost every driver Bearman battled an array of snaps, lock-ups and near-misses throughout the grand prix as well. That’s why the reply that came back from his race engineer was entirely reassuring in tone and content: “They don't get any harder than that, I think, Ollie. It's early days, isn't it? And you'll have learnt an awful lot, and we've made some mistakes as well. We've got a lot to learn on our side. So, we do this together.”

Bearman’s biggest impact in his F1 cameos this year has been demonstrating he can instantly be relied upon by his teams to be professional and competitive, and score points. His self-critical side emerged once more after failing to do that in Brazil.

“To be fast and to score points I needed to stay on track the whole time and unfortunately I didn’t do that,” he said.

“I made too many mistakes.

“It’s definitely tough conditions but I still wasn’t good enough.”

FLASHES OF BRILLIANCE

While Haas struggles a little more in the wet, potentially because of how its car’s aerodynamic characteristics are impacted by the fractionally different dimensions of the intermediate tyre, it was a top-10 threat in all conditions at Interlagos and Bearman was very fast – when he was pointing in the right direction.

He was, to quote Komatsu, “remarkable” in sprint qualifying on Friday at the end of his first day driving at Interlagos.

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Had a tyre temperature control box not failed, compromising the start of his push lap in SQ3, Bearman could have conceivably outqualified George Russell’s Mercedes on merit and started the sprint in sixth.

Bearman was faster than the vastly experienced Nico Hulkenberg in the dry and in the wet. His racecraft on the opening lap of both the sprint and the grand prix, in very different conditions, was exceptionally good – he showed great judgement to gain places around the outside of Turn 4 at both starts, for example.

And before his confidence got knocked in the grand prix he was one of the few who looked capable of overtaking. By the end of his first stint, Bearman had pretty much negated the cost of his spin behind Colapinto – a collision that was wholly unnecessary even if a penalty was harsh given the Williams driver was unaffected by it.

He pulled strong moves on both Saubers, with the Turn 4 dive inside Valtteri Bottas both a highlight and the kind of move that's becoming a bit of a Bearman hallmark.

He did the same to Lewis Hamilton, capitalising on the Mercedes driver running off at Turn 1 by moving to the outside through Turn 3, cutting back across and not getting bullied out of a move despite being squeezed on the inside into Turn 4.

Bearman also picked off Carlos Sainz and then Colapinto in this stint when both ran wide at Turn 4.

All of this was great. As were a couple of other moves later in the grand prix. But the penalty set him back again, costing him positions even though it was mitigated slightly by serving it while the virtual safety car was deployed.

And ultimately the great work he did regaining lost ground was the result of self-inflicted trouble that should have been avoided in the first place.

HARDEST LESSONS YET

Bearman was one of many voices to call for a red flag when the rain intensified and when the stoppage came, Komatsu intervened with a message of patience. But as Bearman admits, he did not drive well enough immediately after the restart.

First, he locked up onto the grass at the final corner, spinning in the process, trying to catch the field at the end of a solitary outlap before the race resumed.

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Bearman then cleared both Saubers as he rapidly latched back onto the stragglers – only to get caught out behind Sainz, run a little wide through Turn 6 and suffer a slide that turned into the rear going completely.

A 360-degree spin and light nosing into the barrier followed – dropping Bearman to last again. He called himself an “idiot” over the radio, then made his final notable error (again at the last corner) a couple of laps later.

It was a chaotic and very damaging spell of the race, one in which Bearman lost his usual composure.

“It's really tough to get confidence in the car when the front tyres seem to lock at a tiny bit more brake pressure,” Bearman admitted.

“This is really difficult to manage and difficult to get confidence in the car. A lot of my mistakes came from front locking and once you lock the tyre it’s really came over, you’re out of the track.”

Haas puts some of that locking down to the car’s behaviour in the wet putting it on the edge too much – for example, Hulkenberg also suffered with both axles locking too easily as he spun off, got stuck, and was disqualified because he could only get going again with outside assistance from some marshals.

But Bearman’s inexperience also showed in some of his inconsistency, overeagerness, and tendency to cause some quick snaps by dropping a wheel onto the white line.

One last caution and restart gave him a final chance to reset, and he recovered to 12th in a final stint spent yo-yoing closer to, then further from, a group of Liam Lawson, Hamilton and Sergio Perez vying for the final points positions. It ended up being a respectable enough result in isolation, just not as good as it could have been.

The lessons were plentiful – and went beyond driving in those conditions and managing his own enthusiasm.

Bearman’s communication with his engineer was very strong, from feeding back specific problem corners as the rain intensified to calling for advice on gaps to cars behind because the visibility in his mirrors was nil, and in return he had plenty of suggestions for how to use the tools in the car to assist him with understeer in the slippery conditions, so Bearman got a taste of how engine braking and differential setting changes could alter the car behaviour in the wet.

“It’s been a crazy weekend, that’s for sure,” he reflected. “Especially with the weather, with the format. It’s been impressively strange.

“But it’s good for me to learn new things and doing a race in the wet in F1 is very rare.

“So, I need to make the most of all of them and take all of the laps as experience.”