The teenager will make an early debut with Haas at the next race in Baku, filling in for a banned Kevin Magnussen.

Finlay McSporran
Published: 12:31, 6th September 2024

This will be his second Grand Prix this year, having filled in for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Bearman would finish a very respectable P7 on debut, which encouraged Haas to sign him for the 2025 season.

Current Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was handed a 1 race ban following an incident between himself and Pierre Gasly at the Italian GP last week which earnt him two penalty points on his licence meaning he had accumulated 12 in total over the past 12 months, earning himself a race ban.

This gave Haas an opportunity to promote Bearman from his test and reserve role at the team for the next race at Baku, a track were he saw great success at last year in Formula 2.

After topping practice, the British driver went onto claim pole position, win the sprint race and the feature race, completing the perfect F2 weekend.

Bearman is currently 14th in the F2 standings with one pole and two sprint race wins to his name in what has been a difficult second season for him. He has also competed in multiple FP1 session with Haas alongside his F2 duties which will no doubt prove useful when he drives for them next week.

This of course means that he will have to set aside his F2 duties once again to focus on F1.

Ollie to drive at the #AzerbaijanGP 🇦🇿

Ollie will step in to the VF-24 alongside Nico for the weekend, following Kevin’s one-race suspension in Baku. #HaasF1 #F1 pic.twitter.com/7euWB0C8h5

— MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) September 6, 2024

Speaking about his opportunity to race with Haas this weekend, Bearman said: “It’s definitely more of a challenge stepping in to race as a reserve driver, with limited prep-time and so on, but I’m in the fortunate position of having done it earlier in the year with Scuderia Ferrari, so I can at least call on that experience.

“I’ve also had four FP1 sessions with MoneyGram Haas F1 Team in the VF-24 already this season, so undoubtedly that will also prove to be valuable in tackling the full race weekend in Baku. The team is in good form at the moment and I’ll do my best to be prepared with the time we have available. The aim is to get out there and have a solid weekend in Azerbaijan.”

Formula 1