Oliver Bearman revealed he was woken up on Friday morning with the call to replace Kevin Magnussen for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
With Haas driver Magnussen taken ill, Bearman stepped in for the Dane for the second time this season and duly qualified 10th for Saturday’s sprint, before finding out he would fill Magnussen’s shoes for the entire weekend.
Having initially been drafted in for the sprint running in Sao Paulo, Bearman discovered shortly after the qualifying session that he would start the third F1 grand prix of his career on Sunday.
"Kevin Magnussen will not participate in Friday’s track running at the São Paulo Grand Prix after suffering with sickness," a statement from Haas said.
"Official reserve driver Oliver Bearman will take over driving duties. The team wishes Kevin a quick recovery and will provide a further update in due course."
Bearman, who made his F1 debut as a late stand-in for Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, will race full-time for Haas in 2025 and stood in for Magnussen when he was banned for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The race in Baku was so far the only time the Briton has been able to fully prepare for a race, but he was delighted to get the call from Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu on Friday, regardless of how early it came.
“Ayao woke me up this morning at, like, 6:30 with his call,” said Bearman.
“When I saw his name I wasn't so mad. If it was my mum or something, not realising the time difference, I would have been a bit more angry!
“Of course, I want to give my best to Kevin because I know he's feeling bad, and he has had a lot of success at the track and he took pole here. Of course, I am very happy to get into an F1 car and it is a pleasure.”
Bearman is the first driver in F1 history to score points for two different teams in his first two races, having finished seventh in Jeddah for Ferrari and 10th on his Haas debut in Baku.
Brazil presents his first chance to take part in an F1 sprint race before then lining up for the grand prix on Sunday.
He outqualified the sister Haas of Nico Hulkenberg in sprint qualifying – only for an error at the start of his hot lap in the top-10 shoot-out to prevent him starting even further up the field.
“I mean, the car was feeling really good all day," he added. "Honestly, from the first lap I did in FP1 I had a great feeling.
“So, yeah, happy to be in SQ3 and finally make it to the third stage of a qualifying session but I just made a little mistake in sector one which lost me a lot of time. The rest of the lap was really, really good so I'm a bit disappointed.”
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