Oliver Bearman has been a member of the Ferrari Academy since 2022 and has dreamed of racing in red in Formula One for a long time. However with Leclerc being locked in for the foreseeable future and Lewis Hamilton's upturn in form, is the young Brit facing a dilemma?
Oliver Bearman in 2024
As previously mentioned, Bearman joined the academy in 2022 at the age of 16 following a dominant year of racing in which he won the German and Italian F4 championships. He has also stated that securing a seat for the Maranello tram is his ultimate target.
A key turning point in Bearman’s rise to F1, and being tipped for a full time Ferrari seat one day was his stand out performance at the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. His performance was seriously impressive, I will give you the rundown of that weekend. Bearman was a reserve driver for Haas and Ferrari at the time, while also competing in F2 full time. He had secured pole position for PREMA racing in F2 qualifying, however on the Friday morning he was offered the opportunity of his life. Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur called Bearman in to replace Carols Sainz, who needed emergency surgery for appendicitis. He had the 60 minute FP3 session to adapt to the car, although that was definitely not enough time to fully adjust. Qualifying was close, he claimed P11 for the grid, marginally missing out of a chance to take part in Q3 by 0.036 seconds.
Race day was when he stunned viewers. He had a clean start on medium tires and managed to avoid any silly collisions during the opening laps. Lance Stroll crashed early on lap 7 bringing out a safety car, allowing Bearman to box for the hard compound. He was placed into some traffic but he managed to overtake the likes of Tsunoda and Hulkenberg. The magic came when Norris and Hamilton pitted for softs later in the race, giving Ollie valuable track position. They were much faster on fresher tires but he managed to find enough pace to match their lap times and held them off to bring home a 7th place finish on his debut.
Not only was his performance just flat out impressive with such little warning and preparation, he achieved so much in the span of 48 hours. At 18 years, 10 months and 1 day, he became Ferrari’s youngest debutant and the third youngest driver in F1 history. On top of that he secured points in F1 for Ferrari. Naturally, fans were impressed. He won the fan vote by 48.3% and he was heavily tipped by many to be the future of Ferrari.
However there is a dilemma. Ferrari have their golden boy Charles Leclerc locked in on a long term contract lasting until at the very least 2029, leaving one remaining seat. That seat is currently filled by Lewis Hamilton with a contract until the end of 2027. Although his 2025 season looked shaky, in 2026 he’s had a resurgence of form. If this continues, Ferrari may extend his contract as he is looking incredible at the moment, sitting second in the drivers Championship splitting the Mercedes duo. That leaves Ollie at Haas patiently waiting for a seat to open up, where he too has a contract until the end of 2027.
There have been many debates of Bearman needing a plan B, as his chances to race in red are looking limited. If Hamilton does choose to extend his contract, Bearman will be stuck at Haas wasting his potential. Haas currently are not performing well. Since the start of the 2026 season they seem to be going backwards in development, which is not ideal for Ollie. There is a discussion among fans and pundits like Martin Brundle, who are urging him to look for other routes. One rumour floating around is that Red Bull Racing may be looking at the young Brit as an option, especially if Max Verstappen does decide to leave the team. I view this as quite unlikely as Bearman himself seems very committed to Ferrari.
Ferrari is protective of Bearman and have recently extended his driver academy contract until 2028, meanwhile Bearman stayed loyal to the Ferrari family by denying Aston Martin when they offered him a very lucrative contract for 2027.
Luckily for Bearman he does not seem to be at high risk from other drivers within the Ferrari Junior Programme. His biggest threat would be Rafael Câmara, who dominated the 2025 F3 championship and is currently in contention for the F2 championship with Invicta as he continues to deliver consistent performances. There are murmurs that Ferrari have opened loan talks with Cadillac for a 2027 loan seat to further the Brazilian’s experience. In this timeline, they could clash over the seat around the 2028 or 2029 seasons, but of course this heavily depends on Câmara getting a seat and performing well. Other juniors like Dino Beganovic and Tuukka Taponen are not in serious contention for an F1 seat any time soon therefore pose no risk to Bearman’s Maranello dreams.
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