By Marcella Nadya and Edited by Joe Murphy
One of the more promising Formula 1 rookies this season, Ollie Bearman, has faced challenges to achieve the outcomes he’s capable of. Despite showing amazing talent so far in his racing career, Bearman had a difficult season debut as a full-time Haas driver at the Australian GP. Despite scoring seven points as a reserve driver in 2024.
Disqualifications set to continue?
Looking back at the first race in 2025, the 19-year-old Haas driver caused two red flags in separate free practice sessions. In FP1, he did an oversteer at both Turns 9 and 10 which caused him to put his car to the wall. A similar incident happened in FP3 where Bearman lost control of his car before Turn 11 and once again ended up in the wall. Bearman portrayed the pressure brought on with being a rookie in Formula 1, with his head-down exit from the car following his error in FP3. He was obviously devastated by the situation, but still determined to give his best as the day progressed.
Good news was that he was fine and allowed to continue with qualifying and the race. The weekend, however, went from bad to worse as Bearman failed to deliver in qualifying due to a gearbox issue. Around two minutes into Q1, he had no option but to pit after having difficulty shifting into 4th gear. The Haas mechanics tried their best to fix the car, but the broken gearbox was unsuccessfully repaired in time. Bearman couldn’t set a lap time which resulted in a DNQ and the frustration of having to start the race from the back of the grid. Credit to the retirements of six other drivers, Bearman, who barely made any overtake during the race, finished the Australian GP in P14 without any points to his name. However, Bearman took responsibility for his minor errors in his interviews and expressed optimism for better results heading to the Chinese GP.
Rookies set to lose seats… ALREADY!
The second race on the calendar had a slightly different format as it was also a sprint weekend. Bearman was eliminated in SQ2 for only finishing P12. He finished the sprint race in P15, still earning no points. In contrast to the sprint qualifying where he moved to the second part of qualifying, Bearman could only manage the 17th fastest lap time in qualifying for the race. Things were looking bleak.
However, following the Chinese GP, Bearman humorously earned the nickname Ollie ‘Ciao’ Bearman after he was heard on the team radio saying ‘ciao’ twice when overtaking a Red Bull and Alpine driver. ‘Ciao’, which originated from Italian, can mean both hello and goodbye. Having used ‘ciao’ jokingly during overtakes, Bearman could also say ‘ciao’ as his way of saying goodbye to having no points in the driver’s championship as he finished P10 in style purely to his efforts and not DNFs from other drivers. Initially securing just a point, Bearman moved up to P8 to bring home four points after the two Ferrari drivers were disqualified from P5 and P6.
New driver could emerge onto the 2025 grid…
There are rookies staring down the prospect of losing their seat. Bearman though looks comfortable at this level, as if he belongs. Aa positive start, therefore.
WHEEL2WHEEL REPORTS 