Behind the scenes of Bearman’s Haas F1 debut

The day before Autosport entered the Haas garage for the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ollie Bearman had already made a point of getting to know all the mechanics working in this crucial location.

On Thursday he had shown the entire Haas squad around and said goodbye – a new bundle of energy after the American team had grown accustomed to the relaxed, unemotional nature of two season-long pros in Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg over the past two seasons.

After that his media duties were fulfilled and the next day the fun began.

On Friday, after being given a relatively late night sleep thanks to Formula 1’s later schedule compared to the earlier Formula 2 sessions he had otherwise participated in for Prema Racing, Bearman was ready to drive Magnussen’s VF-24.

We watch as he dons his helmet, absorbs the final words from his personal support team (Enzo Mucci and Jamie Smith) and climbs aboard. Veteran F1 race engineer Mark Slade takes him through the steering wheel-mounted switchgear and system settings before setting off on the first of three runs – two medium stints either side of a softs run.

In this session he will finish eleventh, ahead of Hulkenberg, who is struggling with a DRS problem. Without this problem there would have been a gap of 0.4 seconds, which is in the veteran’s favor.

We can clearly hear Magnussen’s technical team coaching the drivers even more, with Hulkenberg processing the data himself once he’s back in the garage and warning his team of potential damage to the floor, while Bearman is Slade who spots an anomaly in the pitot tube sensor data, prompting mechanics to dive for the right rear diffuser to check it.

Alex Kalinauckas, motorsports journalist

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

But the biggest takeaway from listening to Bearman’s radio for the heavily jammed opening hour is how quiet he generally is on the air. Only the urgent announcement of “I’ve got some serious graininess” on a long run late in the session betrays a hint of discomfort.

“That’s typical of rookies – they just absorb so much,” explains Ed Brand, driver performance engineer (for both Haas cars) and team strategy engineer.

Autosport departs for Baku’s chandelier-heavy hotel conference room media centre for FP2, but Haas insiders later report that this quiet sponge approach from Bearman continues into the second Friday session, where he finishes 10th – this time two places but just 0.072s behind Hulkenberg.

The paddock has woken up to a surprisingly leaden sky on Saturday. After Autosport manoeuvres us past the circuit’s many urban obstacles, we watch trackside for FP3. But we barely get a chance to judge Bearman’s approach to the tricky right-hander at Turn 4, thanks to his lowest moment of the weekend.

According to Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu, who “braked so late into Turn 1 even compared to much more competitive cars like (Charles) Leclerc,” Bearman was far too fast into the left-hand corner on his first push lap and had no space left to avoid hitting the barrier with his left-hand corner. The team had warned him that the track conditions were “really bad,” according to his future team boss.

A slow start to FP3 (thanks to early drizzle) and Esteban Ocon’s red-flagged first stop all meant that Bearman failed to add to his two-lap total, much to the chagrin of Motorsport Images and dedicated Haas team photographer Simon Galloway, who had backed away from his Turn 5 exit spot to let a marshal’s space pass and never saw Bearman pass again after he had been flashed past in the short interval.

Bearman’s Haas mechanics need to rebuild quickly for qualifying. But after thanking the entire crew who got his car back to normal for that session, he gives them a better reward. He outpaces Hulkenberg – on a track the German driver hates – to within 0.128s of Q3, although he is eliminated in 11th in Q2.

Oliver Bearman, Haas VF-24

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

“He performed three tenths less than expected – a clear mistake (he went deep into Turn 11 at Baku Castle and also had to take a snap into Turn 12),” said the hard-working Komatsu.

Bearman’s own annoyance is revealed when he is spotted banging his steering wheel in frustration on his return to the pits. But Haas were impressed with how he got back into the swing of things around the Q1 yellow flags and how “the time he did on that used soft tyre (in Q2 run one) is the same time Nico could do on new soft tyres”, according to Komatsu.

Afterwards, Bearman shakes hands with Hulkenberg in the media mixed zone. Despite being temporary teammates and Hulkenberg joining Sauber/Audi in 2025, a small bond is said to have formed between the two.

Bearman pointed out to Hulkenberg that it is normal for Formula 1 drivers to get up late, while Autosport understands they also shared plenty of jokes during a visit to the fan zone in Baku on Saturday.

The race is a wild affair for Bearman. He starts 10th thanks to Lewis Hamilton’s pitlane start penalty, his one pace stint on the mediums is too slow and on lap 10 he is asked to make way for Hulkenberg.

The problem is twofold. He would later say: “I just lost a lot of time in the first stint by not driving so hard – I was just saving the tyres too much and that wasn’t really necessary”. Komatsu is also frustrated that Haas didn’t “communicate well enough (to say) ‘that’s not good enough pace and we need to do something else'”.

“But that’s on our side,” he adds.

Oliver Bearman, Haas VF-24, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In stint two, Bearman climbs back to the fringes of the top 10, with Hulkenberg battling with the Williams duo, holding off the marauding Hamilton for an impressive 23 laps.

The gap between them was “like a yo-yo, quite big”, according to Bearman, as they gradually closed in on Hulkenberg’s position between Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto – after the leading Williams finally pitted and then overtook the leading Haas.

Then, with 10 laps to go, Hamilton “attacked” – again, according to Bearman. A quick DRS-assisted run down the long Baku straight kept Hamilton on the inside line.

Bearman might have chosen to drive on that stretch of tarmac, but he was still given credit for having judged his Mercedes correctly and trying to keep up on the outside.

He was confident that a seven-time world champion would not “push him into a wall” and gave everything he had, until the inevitable happened and Hamilton did indeed flash past when Bearman went off the track in FP3.

His race looked set to end in a brave 13th place, but then a number of things worked in Bearman’s favour.

First, Hulkenberg lost the three-second lead he had over Williams’ own temporary rookie Colapinto by hitting the wall approaching the tight, downhill Turn 15 left with three laps to go. His pace, fearing a puncture, proved costly and Hulkenberg was then jumped by Colapinto at Turn 3 on the following lap.

Oliver Bearman, Haas F1 Team, with teammate

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Then, after the clumsy collision between Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz, Hulkenberg hit a piece of debris with his right front wheel that had already worried him and, being “completely over-strained” according to Komatsu, he failed to react well enough to a green flag sign that was displayed seconds later for Turn 3.

Here Hamilton shot past, with Bearman looking to follow him. It was a crucial move that secured him 10th place and second stand-in points for the 2024 season after his Jeddah cameo in place of Sainz at Ferrari. “Absolutely cool” was Bearman’s assessment of the performance.

We return to the rapidly deconstructing paddock to visit Haas for the last time on Sunday evening, as the sun sets over the shores of the Caspian Sea. Here we find Komatsu: “Not perfect, but pretty impressive,” he concludes.

Speaking to other Haas team members last weekend, it was clear that Bearman was even more impressive off the track.

His quick-wittedness and quiet, self-deprecating demeanor have struck the right note for a team that has not enjoyed the exalted glory of the team where Bearman is a junior, Ferrari. The Scuderia will reportedly pay the Briton’s salary next year, while Haas also benefits from his media-training savvy that shone through at the Academy.

But it is mainly his attitude that has been so well received by Haas so far. ‘Already one of us’, is how it sounds.