Ollie Bearman’s rivals need no warning that the 19-year-old Briton, who will start his first full season in Formula One a fortnight from now, is not afraid to go up against anyone.
As we speak, he is relaxed and smiling inside his Haas team’s hospitality area during a lull from testing and he looks outside to note that it is raining harder – in Bahrain! Here in the Gulf kingdom, for once, it feels more like a spring morning in Blackpool than the usual desert scorcher.
Driving and debriefs have formed his existence during three days of acclimatising to his new car ahead of the opening race in Melbourne on March 16.
But, having moved to Monaco in the last few months, his daily routine involves long cycle rides with no less than Tadej Pogacar, the 26-year-old whose talents as a cyclist of dominance have won comparisons with Eddy Merckx, which is like being likened as a driver to Juan Manuel Fangio.
Victories in three Tours de France are only the tip of the Slovenian’s iceberg of achievements, but not enough for Bearman, a beanpole a touch over 6ft 2in, to be deterred from rising early from his small, rented apartment to hit the quiet roads.
‘He really put me in my place,’ says Bearman of the occasional experience with Pogacar. ‘I want to bring him to a race.’
Ollie Bearman is gearing up for his first full season in Formula One after joining Haas this year
Some of his training methods are unorthodox, with the Monaco-based teenager enjoying a cycle with superstar Tadej Pogacar when possible
The 19-year-old may be a rookie at motorsport’s top table but the Briton is up for the challenge
Bearman’s bravery, his willingness to tackle challenges, was revealed to the world when he stepped in at the 11th hour as a replacement for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz (a more regular member of Bearman’s daily cycling posse), who went down with appendicitis nearly a year ago. Yes, aged 18, he jumped into the world’s most famous car on the Jeddah track in Saudi Arabia, one of the fastest and dangerous there is.
He finished seventh, a performance of such assurance and promise that he won rave reviews from his fellows.
Lewis Hamilton, he reveals, was the first to offer words of encouragement beforehand. ‘I was nervous going up being in the company of people like that,’ he admits. Daunting? Yes, given he was a one-year-old when Hamilton made his debut for McLaren in 2007. He is now racing alongside heroes, though not on their wages.
Hamilton, by dint of seven world titles, is on £50million a year at Ferrari. Bearman is likely to be on between £250,000 and £300,000. He might expect to double his money next year. So his Monaco pad is a shoebox, though not bad work when you are still a teenager.
Being chosen to be a member of Ferrari’s academy may indicate a gilded life, but that would distort the picture of a boy from Chelmsford, Essex, one of three children from a seemingly good family, an enterprising father and head of the insurance firm Aventum, David, and loving mother, Terri.
But he is not a billionaire’s son for whom there was laid a magic carpet from junior categories. He has got to where he is – the fourth British driver on the grid alongside Hamilton, George Russell and Lando Norris – in what is to all intents and purposes a rookie season through hard graft and talent. (He stepped in at Haas a couple of times in 2024, in addition to his emergency call-up by Ferrari – so a rookie only arguably.)
A period of strengthening and cardio work over the winter leaves him in top condition, especially working on the strength of his neck, the one area of the body most vulnerable to the G-forces generated in the cockpit of the beasts these guys drive.
But on the subject of sacrifices, he took himself off to Maranello, home of Ferrari, aged 16, leaving behind home comforts and King Edward VI Grammar School (against his mother’s pro-educational instincts), as well as an English Bull Terrier and a Boston Terrier with whom he is close.
Last season saw Bearman step in at the eleventh hour to replace Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz
In the Spaniard’s Ferrari Bearman finished an impressive seventh and gained rave reviews from the rest of the paddock
His travels to Italy have left him with a hybrid accent. Not Essex, but an international twang. It’s now Monaco (with its network of fellow drivers), so the timbre is unlikely to change much – let’s see.
I find him engaging and talkative, polite and a touch embarrassed at times, his youthfulness apparent along with a maturity that defies his birth certificate. At the start of a new home from home, he takes succour from an English restaurant that has opened up near where he lives. ‘It does pies and Beef Wellington,’ he says. He drives a company Alfa Romeo. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he adds.
But it is not the car he wants most. That is a Ferrari F40, the machine next to which Hamilton was pictured last month on his first day at Ferrari. ‘I was fortunate enough to drive one for an hour. It was incredible.’
He adds, with his father sitting on the next table: ‘I think it is his favourite too. An iconic car. I dream to have one, but I will have to do well in Formula One first.’
He loves tennis and watches cycling as well as hitting the hills himself. His devotion to cars runs deeper. Even before he took up karting (his father races at lower levels of motor racing – a young Oliver attended some of them), he remembers: ‘I could tell you way back then every car on the road. I had model cars, and I pushed them around the living room. It was my life.’
Bearman revealed recently that he passed his driving test at the second attempt, as all the best drivers do – a case in point being 2009 world champion Jenson Button, a childhood hero, perhaps more so than Hamilton.
He also brings perspective from his Ferrari tutelage. Michael Schumacher stands out. ‘He is a role model of mine. Having been there in Italy and seen what he means to people still, his work ethic, what he brought to the team, it is awe-inspiring,’ he says.
Bearman’s own schedule sees him return to the Haas seat today as the team try to better their improved, seventh-place finish in the constructors’ championship last year.
Bearman has taken advice from his compatriot and current Ferrari icon Lewis Hamilton
But the Briton named his all-time hero as another Ferrari superstar – Michael Schumacher
Amid pre-season testing in Jeddah, Bearman has admitted he’s nervous but that the feeling is a natural and healthy one
Is he nervous? ‘It is natural and healthy,’ he says, and Jeddah last year underpins his reasoning, ‘but I feel as if I can act well under pressure.’
But fame is at his elbow. With F1 success comes scrutiny, the unenviable part of a life of fantasy. A romance of his, and rumours over whether he was still with a TikTok ‘siren’, made headlines last year. They may again so long as he is an eligible bachelor.
Bearman can still walk the streets without being mobbed. ‘But you lose privacy in this game,’ he says. ‘I found that coming into F1. It is part of life. I am enjoying everything while I can go about without everyone knowing me.’
The opposite is a price he is willing to pay.
