The Grand Prix weekend in Saudi Arabia was not without its share of unexpected challenges for Ferrari. The surprise came overnight between Thursday and Friday when Carlos Sainz was diagnosed with appendicitis, arriving at the Jeddah circuit in pain and far from being in good shape. This diagnosis forced the Scuderia to act quickly, summoning one of the reserve drivers to replace the Spaniard and compete in the second race of the year.
Perhaps due to logistical reasons (since Robert Shwartzman and Antonio Giovinazzi, coming off the 1812 km Qatar race, were not in Jeddah), the choice fell on the only available option: Oliver Bearman, born in 2005, a member of the Ferrari Academy, currently competing in Formula 2. The decision was communicated to the British driver only on Friday morning after he had secured the first pole position of the season in F2 the night before – an achievement that took a back seat to the call from the Prancing Horse, a call “Ollie” answered without hesitation.
This call led him to face his first weekend in the top tier blindly, as he had only the FP3 session before heading into qualifying, where, without any errors, Oliver missed access to Q3 by a mere 36 thousandths, postponing the chance to prove himself to the race. True to his word, in Jeddah’s night, the British driver performed exceptionally well, finishing his debut race in seventh place, earning points, making no mistakes, and even overtaking the seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, on a challenging track.
An extraordinary result achieved amidst various difficulties, both technical and physical, as the cockpit of his Ferrari was not tailored to his dimensions but to those of Carlos Sainz. A few laps from the end, Oliver Bearman had reported neck pain that accompanied him, exhausted, until the finish line. In the final moments, despite being filled with joy, Ollie Bearman struggled to exit his single-seater and appeared visibly drained in the parc ferme. This condition, coupled with the neck pain, was exacerbated by a problem that affected the number 38 Red car: a malfunction in the “drink” system, a circuit where the driver (especially in hot GPs like Jeddah) pushes a button on the steering wheel to receive a pre-prepared drink from their physiotherapist into their mouth through a system in the car. An issue that, over the 50 laps, prevented Ollie from hydrating adequately, and he explained it over the team radio to his race engineer:
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“The drink is going everywhere except in my mouth!”
An inconvenience within a “crazy” weekend that, however, did not prevent the Englishman from showcasing himself, both in view of the driver market for the 2025 Formula 1 season and to provide Ferrari with the awareness that their young driver academy harbors a genuine talent, a raw diamond in the making.
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