Oliver Bearman nearly missed his F1 debut chance (Image: Getty)
has revealed that he nearly missed the chance to race for at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in 2024 due to some unlucky circumstances. The Brit went on to finish seventh after replacing the stricken , catapulting his stock sky high.
Bearman is now preparing for his rookie season with Haas, but the 19-year-old already has priceless race experience under his belt. After catching the paddock’s attention on debut, the Brit made two further appearances in 2024.
Both of these starts came at the expense of Kevin Magnussen, who missed the Azerbaijan Grand Prix due to a race ban, and the Brazilian Grand Prix due to illness. Bearman finished in the points in Baku and crossed the line in P12 at a brutal rain-affected Interlagos race.
The teenager heads into the 2025 season as a known quantity and one of the most highly-rated prospects on the grid. However, things could look totally different for Bearman if it were not for some quick thinking.
“I was at lunch,” Bearman told , explaining the story of his near-miss. “My manager Chris got a call from Fred [Vasseur, Ferrari team principal], but he had no credit left on his phone. Fred called him, and then it locked out straight away.
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Bearman will enjoy his full rookie season in 2025 (Image: Getty)
“So, I had to call him [Fred] – because, luckily, I’d filled up my SIM card. It probably cost my Dad a fortune that call. I said, ‘Fred, I’ve got 10 seconds, otherwise I’ll run out of data’. Of course, I knew what was going on [with Sainz’s appendicitis]. I didn’t have time to laugh about it in the moment, but now I can laugh a lot about it.”
With his first full season in F1 fast approaching, Bearman enjoyed more miles in Haas machinery at the team’s first-ever Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) outing. The Essex-born racer joined fellow new recruit Esteban Ocon and Toyota development driver Ritomo Miyata at the Jerez circuit.
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Team principal Ayao Komatsu is more than content with his new arrival. Speaking about Bearman to , he said: “His baseline was already very high. I’ve been impressed with how he reacts to adversity.
“If you have a reliability issue and lose one run in the session, how will he react to that? If he wasn’t in tune with the car or how it was behaving – how did he address it? It’s more about how he deals with those situations – and so far, he’s doing that really well.”