Bearman had ‘great fun’ in ‘good show’ on F1 debut

Oliver Bearman says he had “great fun” but was physically “destroyed” after finishing in the points in seventh on his Formula 1 debut in Saudi Arabia.

The 18-year-old, the youngest Briton to start an F1 race, was called up by Ferrari on Friday to replace Carlos Sainz, who had appendicitis.

Bearman finished ahead of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

“I think I put a good show for myself which is the main thing, right?” he said.

“Difficult circumstances, not a lot of laps on track but I think I maximised everything today.”

Bearman was told just a few hours before the final practice session on Friday that he would be in the Ferrari seat to replace Sainz for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The Ferrari reserve driver was already in Jeddah, where he was competing in the Formula 2 championship and had taken pole position for the feature race in qualifying on Thursday.

Bearman, who is the third youngest driver to start an F1 race, qualified 11th and held that position from the start, before losing a place after Lance Stroll’s crash led to an early safety car period.

He passed Zhou Gunayu’s Sauber and then Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas and went on to finish immediately ahead of fellow Britons Lando Norris, of McLaren, and Mercedes’ Hamilton.

He was named driver of the day in the fans’ vote.

Bearman’s father David was in the Ferrari garage, nervously watching on, while among those to offer congratulations in the paddock afterwards was Spaniard Sainz, who was at the Jeddah circuit the day after he had surgery.

Bearman said that “mentally it was a difficult race” and physically he was “struggling too”.

He added: “I felt like I was a bit quicker than [Fernando] Alonso and [George] Russell in front but not enough to catch. I lost a lot of time trying to pass Hulkenberg, who used his experience to keep me back for more laps than he should have. That’s my bad but it was a good race.

“Especially my lower back and neck are hurting, these seats take a bit of fine-tuning and we didn’t have time to focus on that. It was a good motivation to finish the race quicker.”

Bearman, from Chelmsford in Essex, started karting when he was eight years old. He made his single-seater debut in 2020, won both the Italian and German Formula 4 titles in 2021, finished third in his debut Formula 3 season in 2022 and was sixth in F2 last year.

He has been a member of the Ferrari driver academy since 2021 and drove two practice sessions for the Haas team in F1 last year.

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur complimented Bearman on a “fantastic job” despite not being “optimistic” beforehand because of the last-minute nature of the call-up.

“As an English driver, to have Norris and Hamilton behind you, it is a good one. I was a bit balanced on the radio between push because it’s manageable and avoid the mistake. On the data, he didn’t do a single mistake all race,” added Vasseur.

Ferrari team-mate Leclerc, who finished third, said Bearman did an “incredible job”.

“Everyone has noticed how talented he is and it is just a matter of time before he is in F1,” the Frenchman said.

British racing driver Jack Aitken said Bearman was “really impressive” and believed that he had “booked a ticket to the grid for next year”.

“He handled a lot of things in that race and took it all and made a really good job of all the situations presented to him,” he told BBC Sport.

“I think he’s done a fantastic job and put himself in contention for a seat in one of the Ferrari customer teams or even Ferrari.”

Norris, who finished just over three seconds behind Bearman in eighth, congratulated him on a “mega job” while British 1996 world champion Damon Hill posted on X: “Star is born now! To jump in at such short notice, on a track as intimidating as Jeddah, in a Ferrari of all things, and hold up under immense pressure from Lando and Lewis and keep it together. Wow.”