One-time Formula 1 team-mates Ollie Bearman and Charles Leclerc share much common ground – beyond their shared experience racing Ferrari’s SF-24 around Jeddah’s high-speed city track blast.
While racing full-time in the lower formulas, they both made several practice appearances for the Haas squad where Bearman is now set to make an unscheduled early debut in place of Kevin Magnussen at next week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. That can’t quite be ‘unexpected’ given how long Magnussen faced racing at F1’s penalty points limit, but Haas couldn’t know exactly when, and indeed, if, the Dane would earn any more sanctions.
The Baku City Circuit was a happy F2 hunting ground for both Leclerc and Bearman – as each took a clean sweep of weekend wins for the Prema Racing squad in their rookie seasons at the top level of junior single-seaters.
Here, the similarities diverge. For Leclerc lost his on-the-road 2017 F2 sprint race win – on the weekend his father died, it shouldn’t be forgotten – for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags. And the Monegasque driver’s four practice appearances in the VF-16 Haas the year before also didn’t exactly impress the American squad in the same way Bearman has managed over the last 12 months.
Leclerc felt those 2016 outings for Haas hampered his GP3 title-winning season (and in another difference to Bearman, he won the top two categories on F1’s support bill while the Briton’s junior titles came earlier, in Formula 4) so insisted he didn’t make any further F1 practice appearances as a Ferrari junior while racing in the 2017 F2 campaign until it was won. He led the line for Ferrari back in Jeddah, when Bearman was still set to remain in the Ferrari Academy rather than be soon set to graduate from it.
At 2024’s second race, Ferrari was firmly Red Bull’s closest challenger. McLaren had made a low-key start, while Mercedes and Aston Martin were floundering (to a greater and lesser extent respectively). That eased Bearman’s first F1 weekend a touch, which is not to undervalue how hard it was to step up from F2 and have only one practice session at a very challenging track, in place of the appendicitis-addled Carlos Sainz.
And while Ferrari has since been overcome by McLaren and, semi-regularly, by Mercedes as this season has exploded in interest with Red Bull stumbling, stepping into Haas’s VF-24 is an entirely different proposition for Bearman.
Unlike Ferrari in Jeddah, Haas will not have clear podium aspirations for its drivers next weekend.
But it is engaged in a very tight battle with RB that has fluctuated wildly across the campaign. Bearman delivering points on the back of his double F2 wins here well over a year ago now the event has shifted forward five months for the 2024 edition will be a welcome result, if not something Haas will be heaping pressure on.
For 2025, given his oncoming full-time deal, he will also benefit from an early lesson in how different it is to go racing in the middle or back of the F1 pack
“It’s definitely more of a challenge stepping in to race as a reserve driver, with limited prep-time and so on, but I’m in the fortunate position of having done it earlier in the year with Ferrari, so I can at least call on that experience,” Bearman says.
“I’ve also had four FP1 sessions with Haas in the VF-24 already this season, so undoubtedly that will also prove to be valuable in tackling the full race weekend in Baku.
“The team is in good form at the moment and I’ll do my best to be prepared with the time we have available. The aim is to get out there and have a solid weekend in Azerbaijan.”
Bearman’s own Baku-specific form is handy for Haas, while for 2025, given his oncoming full-time deal, he will also benefit from an early lesson in how different it is to go racing in the middle or back of the F1 pack.
Some drivers struggle to cope with adjusting from being in regular victory contention in the lower formulas to perhaps never standing on a podium again in single-seaters. And then there’s the ever-shifting downforce levels instilled in pack racing that can catch out the inexperienced.
Remember here how George Russell went off early in F1’s first Styrian GP for Williams once the team had caught back up to the pack in 2020, having been so badly off the back of it in his rookie year in 2019.
Surely this can be considered a factor in how regularly Magnussen got himself involved incidents this season, but at the same time he has lived and been suspended by his own unique brand of the F1 sword.
Magnussen refused to change his approach even after reaching the penalty points threshold back in May. And while Pierre Gasly might object to the Monza move that finally earned his ban even being a penalty, Magnussen’s uncompromising, aggressive driving style even when running solo on track meant he rather Magnussen’d his way into his current predicament. Risky, but there’s got to be at least an element of respect stemming for being true to one’s values here.
Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu will be expecting Bearman to show precisely more of that next weekend.
This is how the now 19-year-old has consistently impressed Haas by doing exactly as the team has asked when stepping into its cars. He hasn’t tried to set stunning lap times or show flashes of speed at the wrong moment – he’s simply got on with the job at hand.
Next weekend, that’s doing as he did for Ferrari in Jeddah and avoiding a shunt on another tricky, fast street track, plus trying to get the VF-24 into points contention. Or, at least help Nico Hulkenberg do so in the other one.
Magnussen went over the limit in doing this several times this year, but that loyalty to Haas had already paid him back in terms of being kept on for 2024 when some at the team had felt change was necessary given his 2023 results compared to Hulkenberg. Impressing Haas early could therefore really come to pay back Bearman in the long-term.
“This is another excellent opportunity for both Ollie and the team to work together,” says Komatsu. “This time throughout an entire race weekend and he couldn’t ask for better team-mate than Nico to provide him with a reference.”
Haas is getting a completely new break in 2025, with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon – another of uncompromising style – joining too.
Now they’re racing together in F1 again. And this time likely on similar pieces of asphalt through the race in the championship’s congested midfield pack, perhaps the element of Bearman’s second 2024 substitute appearance that will be worth watching most closely in Baku is how he and Ocon go about racing each other in a one-off for different squads…
