Turning 18 is one of life’s great milestones. You can vote! Go to the pub! Or, if you’re Oliver Bearman, with less than a day’s notice, you can hop into a Ferrari and race at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.
The British teenager was already in Jeddah, and had just taken pole position for the weekend’s Formula 2 feature race, when Carlos Sainz Jr was diagnosed with appendicitis. With the top dogs at Ferrari in urgent need of a replacement, and having seen what Bearman was made of over the last two years, they didn’t hesitate to draft him straight in for a debut in the big time. In doing so, Bearman becomes the first driver to make their Formula 1 debut in a Ferrari since Art Merzario in 1972.
Before the lights go green, there will be hundreds of questions circling the paddock about the young Brit. Can he become the youngest driver to finish on the podium since Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll? Will he drop a big fit for his first proper pit lane walk? And, as is protocol for Ferrari drivers, does he have to slap on a Richard Mille watch for his post-quali interviews?
While we wait for the answers to these searing questions, here’s what we do know about Britain’s newest F1 driver, Oliver Bearman.
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He joined Ferrari at 16
While most of us were itching to put the L plates on our parents’ cars, Bearman had already been racing competitively for years. The Chelmsford-born Bearman’s first official karting race was in 2013 at the age of eight, and he rose through the categories until he made his single-seater debut in 2020. In 2021, he won both the German and Italian F4 Championships, making him the first driver to win two successive F4 titles in a single year. Later in 2021, Bearman joined the Ferrari Driver Academy at 16, progressing through F3 to the upper echelons of F2. His fourth pole position in F2 came yesterday: he’ll be hoping that spirit of success is with him this weekend.
He’s the youngest of Ferrari’s reserve drivers
With Sainz out, Ferrari had a few reserve drivers to choose from, and it was by no means a given that Bearman would be the one to take the reins. Thirty-year-old Antonio Giovinazzi and 24-year-old Robert Shwartzman are the other reserve members in Ferrari’s paddock, and both have a wealth of racing experience, including competing in this year’s World Endurance Championship. Granted, the Brit is already in town for the race, but it still shows a lot of faith in d Bearman that he’s been picked for the Grand Prix.