OLLIE BEARMAN

2024 SAUDI ARABIAN GP Started 11th | Result 7th

Like Regazzoni 54 years earlier, Bearman was chasing a Formula 2 title when he was called up to make his F1 debut for Ferrari.

But ironically, his season with Prema Racing had kicked off in disastrous fashion the previous weekend with an uncompetitive outing in Bahrain.

Things had already taken an upturn in Jeddah, with Bearman earning F2 pole position in Thursday qualifying. The Ferrari Driver Academy protege woke up on Friday expecting to apply himself to the prospect of the reversed-grid F2 race, before the call came to tell him that he was instead replacing the indisposed Carlos Sainz. He would be the first driver to make his F1 debut for Ferrari since Merzario in 1972.

Bearman, just 18 years old, qualified a fine 11th – he was pipped to the Q3 shootout by just 0.036s at the hands of 2025 Ferrari signing Lewis Hamilton, and was half a second away from the leading red car of acknowledged qualifying maestro Charles Leclerc. That drew plaudits from many of the leading names in F1, and so did his race performance.

At times, unsurprisingly, Bearman had looked ragged in his qualifying efforts – he had missed out on two of the three practice sessions, after all. But he settled in nicely in the race, battled back past some of the midfielders after making an early pitstop under the safety car, and then leapfrogged to seventh when Hamilton and Lando Norris made their own stops for soft tyres. It was the pace he showed to prevent these two Brits catching him that was the icing on the cake. Bearman was already being tipped for a full-time F1 seat in 2025 – Haas is running him six times in FP1 this season – and the clamour will now only grow stronger.