Oliver Bearman has participated in Formula 1 weekends before. He has driven in FP1 sessions as part of his reserve duties, including most recently at the Hungarian Grand Prix. He stepped in for an ailing Carlos Sainz Jr. at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, driving in PF3 before participating in both qualifying and the race itself, where he finished.
But thanks to Kevin Magnussen’s one-race penalty ban, this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix is his first full F1 weekend, as he is driving for Haas this weekend in place of Magnussen. After Friday’s two practice sessions, Bearman has a clear goal in mind for the rest of the weekend.
Pride.
That effort is off to a great start, as Bearman placed 11th in FP1 and 10th in FP2.
“It was nice to do a full Friday, building step-by-step without having to rush anything. I was quite happy with how the day went and how the day finished-up, and I was confident in the car which is important on a track like this,” said Bearman in the team’s post-session report. “Tomorrow, my goal is to be proud of my performance; that’s going to be done by improving and finishing at a level I know I’m capable of, and having a clean performance.”
On the other side of the garage, Nico Hülkenberg was also strong for Haas Friday, finishing in P12 in FP1 and P8 in FP2.
“The day hasn’t been bad, not perfect either, but it is a practice day. It was a day spent getting to grips with this very interesting, intense circuit again. It was super dusty; this morning grip conditions were very poor so there was huge track evolution throughout the day, and staying on top of the circuit evolution was key today,” said Hülkenberg. “I didn’t have the cleanest run on the low-fuel softs which is okay, we just need to learn from it, understand our package and understand the tires. It’s been a positive day and a good base that we can compete from this weekend.”
Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu called it a “good” day for the team while praising the young driver.
“Today has been a really good day. We started FP1 reasonably strong but we had a few tweaks to make, which we did. We accounted for big track evolution, which is normal for here, so the feedback on the engineering side was very good,” said Komatsu. “In terms of both low- and high-fuel performance, we didn’t maximize everything, but some good lessons learned and a clear direction of what we need to achieve so it was a decent Friday. Ollie has done a fantastic job again in both sessions, his learning rate is fast so I’m very pleased.”
