What led up to Oliver's emotional and impressive finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Oliver Bearman is a British, twenty year old rookie of the 2025 Formula One season, driving for Haas under the number eighty-seven. However, he is not new to the world of Formula One.
The rookie actually got his first start in the 2024 season as a Ferrari reserve driver at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The eighteen year old was subbing in for Carlos Sainz Jr., who was out for emergency surgery after being diagnosed with appendicitis. In the race Bearman was able to defend his seventh place position against Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton to gain a Driver of the Day acclamation and become the youngest driver to compete for Ferrari. The paddock was a buzz after Bearman’s very impressive debut, which included bringing home six points for Ferrari to add to Leclerc’s sixteen points earned, with many drivers and reporters having said they were expecting to see Bearman in a permanent seat for the 2025 season.
As anticipated, Bearman signed with Haas for the 2025 season, joining his teammate Esteban Ocon and becoming one of six rookies to enter Formula One. Over the course of this season Bearman has scored 32 points with Haas, including his recently earned points from the Mexico City Grand Prix, already a drastic improvement from the entirety of the team’s history which started in 2016. Bearman has already had many notable drives in his rookie season, one in particular being his drive at the Dutch Grand Prix where he started from the pitlane in nineteenth and finished in seventh place before being promoted to sixth place because of Kimi Antonelli’s penalty.
Bearman came into the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend with a points finish from the United States Grand Prix and some experience around the track from the 2024 season’s free practice one testing session. On Saturday Bearman made it into Q1 during qualifying but fell just two tenths of a second behind Isack Hadjar and qualified to start tenth on the grid.
Bearman completed an astonishing drive on Sunday, racing smart and spinning every situation on track in his favor. He took advantage of battles that were happening between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to slide into fourth and was able to hold that position for the grand prix. His fourth place finish is the highest finish the Haas team has seen since 2018 when Romain Grosjean placed fourth at the Austrian Grand Prix. The great achievement earned him Driver of the Day and an emotional post race with his family and girlfriend. He was the focus of the press for post race interviews and shared his excitement and awe over being able to go wheel to wheel with the reigning World Drivers Champion, Max Verstappen.
The rookie is just getting started with many more impressive finishes to come in his optimistic career.