After his first Formula 1 weekend as a driver, Oliver Bearman recounted his debut, filled with excitement, intensity, and the feeling that he could have done more. Equally challenging was the work of the engineers, who explained how their working method changed to help the British driver express his talent.
Starting from pole on Thursday in Formula 2, receiving a sudden call on Friday morning, and finishing seventh under the checkered flag, but not with a car from the preparatory category, but with a Formula 1 single-seater, the Ferrari SF-24.
The Saudi Arabia weekend will be one that Oliver Bearman will remember for a long time, remaining vividly in his memory. It all unfolded in less than 48 hours, from that call on Friday while he was preparing for the start of the F2 Sprint Race, informing him that he would be making the leap to the F1 category in place of the indisposed Carlos Sainz.
From that moment on, it was a race against time for the team because, apart from simulator preparation, hitting the track on one of the most physical and demanding circuits, with many cars around, is quite different from driving alone in virtual reality.
Ollie Bearman described this debut as a childhood dream come true, recounting his emotions for that debut in the Red car: “It’s a childhood dream come true. Debuting in a Ferrari, first of all. It’s an incredible result, and I’m very proud of it. Also becoming the youngest British driver is a nice achievement, and I believe I was the third youngest driver ever, which is really fantastic,” the British driver shared during a lengthy interview released by the Prancing Horse team.
The call came on Friday morning, leaving him with a single free practice session available to get familiar with the Saudi track before qualifying and the race. An undoubtedly challenging task, so much so that FP3 was dedicated more to studying the car and finding the necessary confidence behind the wheel rather than purely chasing lap times, also completing a long stint to accumulate mileage.
“I tried to get up to speed as quickly as possible. We managed to do a short race run just to try to get a read on the tire degradation and also for me to get a few more laps. Then I pretty much went straight into qualifying in the dark with the big change in track temperature and grip,” Bearman recounted, explaining his first hours of the weekend, which clearly took place in sunny conditions with temperatures significantly higher than those he would encounter later in qualifying and the race. Essentially, it was a true debut in the dark.
“I was sorry not to have been able to make it to Q3, but I still think it was a good performance. At least on Saturday in the race, it seems to me that I managed to prepare much better. We had a whole day to do it, instead of a couple of hours’ notice. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with how the race went.”
Clearly, it wasn’t just a last-second call for Bearman, but also for the engineers, who had to revise their usual work program to make the British driver comfortable with very little time available.
In a traditional weekend, at that point of the weekend, the team would already be focusing on details and optimizing the qualifying lap, but with Bearman, the program changed, having to go back to basics. “Having another driver, as in this case with a very late call, is quite challenging for the whole team, so we had to decide what to do. Bearman had to follow many procedures and information to prepare for the race,” explained Matteo Togninalli, Ferrari’s track engineering manager.
“We of the team focus on the basics, on how to optimize the single qualifying lap and how to drive the car in the race. So we think about pace, tires, and not searching for the best lap time, as young drivers tend to do. And then how to approach the race, the start, the pit stop phase, the release from the pit stop with traffic. We avoided going into the small details to optimize to the maximum, so as not to overload him, making him lose focus on what was really important.”
“The difference is that usually, we work with the official drivers, who are used to working with us. So we work as if many things don’t need to be explained, they are already known things. [With Bearman] We had a very clear list with priorities and clear checklist items we wanted to cover. But in the end, everything went well, we completed the program without problems. I think Ollie did very well.”
Getting into Sainz’s car, Bearman worked with the track engineer who usually accompanies the Spaniard during race weekends, namely Riccardo Adami. From the outset, the Italian tried to guide the driver, suggesting he take some time to understand the car but also giving indications on how to approach certain sections of the track to improve his performance.
“First of all, the main goal was to avoid damaging the car for any reason. Then, based on the experience gained in the past with drivers, we drew up a short list of items to focus on. We analyzed start procedures, an already important topic, but also pit stops, differences between preparation for qualifying and long runs, regulations on time management between Safety Car lines, difficult aspects for a rookie. During the race, I tried not to overload him with information, so it was different from working with Carlos, but when I saw when he was going fast, I was happy to see him driving at those levels,” Adami recounted.
However, behind the scenes, there was also a lot of work to prepare the car for the FIA test with which safety parameters are checked, such as the height of the driver inside the cockpit. The mechanics are prepared thanks to their experience with driver changes in tests, but this still represented a challenge.
“Another thing that happened very quickly before the session is that we had to inform the FIA of the driver change. The inspectors came to our garage, and we literally had 5-10 minutes to prepare this car exit test, but also various aspects, such as height, knee space, and more. It was very demanding.”
The young British driver arrived at his debut with only one free practice session, but fortunately, he had already had the opportunity to test the car in some simulator sessions as part of his Ferrari reserve duties. This gave him a basic understanding of using the steering wheel and various selectors, without finding himself completely in the dark about their operation.
During 2023, Bearman completed about forty simulator days, helping the team in development, but he also had the opportunity to become more familiar with a real car by driving both the SF-21 and the F1-75 during two private test sessions, before getting behind the wheel of the
Haas VF-23 during the dedicated young driver practice sessions.
“I think the procedures were simpler than I expected, especially because we tried them many times on the simulator, which is a huge testimony to Ferrari’s simulator, as I was able to get into the car immediately feeling comfortable. All the changes they asked me to make were done quite easily, which shows that the hard work done in the factory has paid off,” the latest representative of the Prancing Horse recounted.
“First of all, I prepared a lot for Jeddah, to try to help the team. So when I hit the track, the transition was almost perfect. I immediately gained speed, and having driven the Ferrari 2022 in Barcelona and also the 2021 car in Fiorano, I was able to find the rhythm quickly because the speed wasn’t a surprise. I think if it had been the first time in an F1 car, I would have struggled a bit more.”
However, he wasn’t only helped by the engineers, but also by the two official drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz: “Receiving advice from Charles during the weekend, especially in qualifying, but also from Carlos during the race, practically guided me through what he saw in the data and transmitted it to my engineer, and it was fantastic. It really helped me accelerate the learning process.”
As much as his first weekend in the top series can be considered a great debut, given the short notice that led him to find himself thrown into the fray with only an hour to get up to speed, Oliver Bearman didn’t hide that there are clearly wide margins for improvement.
While he performed well in Q1, his performance in the second session didn’t leave him completely satisfied, especially because he knew he had a car that potentially would have allowed him to make it to the final qualifying phase. Q2 wasn’t particularly clean, especially the last attempt, where he failed to get the tires into the correct operating window, an aspect that is typically given great attention in practice due to their sensitivity.
However, the British driver didn’t hide that he also made some mistakes due to inexperience, somewhat expected: “I think from the outside it was a positive weekend, but I am a perfectionist, and I made a lot of mistakes for which I don’t blame myself, and obviously I expected to make mistakes, but for example, I didn’t manage to make it to Q3. I should have made it to Q3. The car was fast enough, so it was my fault. The Q2 session was really so-so, and it prevented me from making it by a hair, so it was unfortunate. But these are lessons I’ll put into practice next time. I hope there’s a next time!”, Ollie Bearman recounted.
Even in the race, the new Prancing Horse driver had to adapt quickly, trying to find his rhythm within a few laps. After the Safety Car period, Bearman found himself having to battle with other drivers, completing a nice overtake on Yuki Tsunoda into Turn 1 before a long duel with Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas, who played on his experience.
The British driver, guided from the pit wall, understood how to use the hybrid part right behind the German: it wasn’t just about understanding what the ideal mapping was given the context, but also how and when to best use the overtake button, which provides a short burst of power from the ERS to attack or defend from an opponent.
From this perspective, Oliver Bearman, as sometimes happens with official drivers as well, also received suggestions from the engineers in the garage, indicating to him how and where to use the hybrid. The electric charge available, in fact, isn’t infinite, so you also need to learn to manage it: “Even during the race, I lost a lot of time trying to overtake the slower cars, not using the battery in the most efficient way because it’s a new thing for me. I’ve never had to use the ERS to attack or defend, so it was the first time for me, and maybe I wasn’t the best, especially with Nico [Hulkenberg] doing a great job keeping me behind. So I lost a lot of time, and I could have even finished a position higher if I had managed to be a bit more efficient in the overtakes,” Ollie Bearman recounted.
Riccardo Adami’s help was fundamental, who shared some behind-the-scenes information about this race scenario, emphasizing that they had only tested the overtake button just moments before the race: “Managing overtakes was one of the most difficult parts of the race; we only had FP3, and therefore we didn’t have enough time to prepare energy management.
“It’s hard to be prepared. We literally experimented with the overtake button during the laps to line up on the grid, and it was his first time. So, it took him a couple of laps to understand how to pass Nico Hulkenberg, but with some information from us and some nice moves, he did well,” the engineer added.
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