Incoming Haas Formula 1 driver Ollie Bearman has already made important impressions on the American squad concerning his “maturity” and “ability to understand the bigger picture”.
This is the view of team principal Ayao Komatsu, who has signed Bearman to race alongside Esteban Ocon in an all-new 2025 Haas driver line-up.
Ferrari junior Bearman, who has been impressing Haas since he made a rookie practice appearance in Mexico last year, was able to show how he could handle the various pressures of contesting a race weekend for a midfield team involved in a close championship battle [with RB] during his latest one-off race this year in place of the banned Kevin Magnussen in Azerbaijan.
Having finished seventh for Ferrari while replacing the appendicitis-addled Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia at the start of the season, Bearman scored another point with 10th in Baku.
When asked by Autosport if he had been surprised by this return given Formula 2 driver Bearman’s lack of experience at the top level, Komatsu insisted: “I'm not surprised.
“But this is not to take anything away from Ollie. I'm not surprised because I've seen so much good stuff with him in the FP1s that that's what I expected.
“The very first time he drove for us in Mexico FP1 [in 2023] - what really impressed me was his ability to understand the bigger picture – understand the role he needs to play, what he needs to execute [and] when. And also how quickly he can learn.
“For Baku, the objective was very different. [It’s a] totally different mindset during the whole race weekend [compared to just practice outings], but in terms of what he did – what he executed, how quickly he learned – that's everything I saw in from Mexico the very first time we ran him in FP1.
“Yeah, of course, FP3 [where Bearman crashed on his first push lap in Baku] was a setback.
“So that's one thing I didn't know – how he was going to deal with the setback like that.
“But then again, he was really good, managed to then switch and be focused, go back to what he'd done well on Friday, and then hit the Q1 like that. So that was brilliant.
“It's impressive. But that's what I expected.”
Komatsu also hailed Bearman’s “maturity” when asked to swap positions with temporary team-mate Nico Hulkenberg during the first Baku race stint – as the Briton was lapping too slowly obeying Haas’s instructions on tyre management, when Hulkenberg was showing the tyres could sustain a surprise harder pace on the tricky street circuit.
“What he showed in the race when we had to ask swap positions during the first stint, and then... he wasn't happy,” Komatsu added. “Which I can totally understand why.
“But then, even though he was unhappy about it, he just did it.
“He didn't then not let Nico by, and then delayed it for another lap or two. So again, that just shows the maturity, right? It's great.
Bearman’s Baku point came after he nipped past Hulkenberg in the aftermath of Sainz and Sergio Perez crashing late on – where the lead Haas driver did not react to a green flag marker board after passing the incident and hitting debris, when the following Lewis Hamilton did.
Bearman following the Mercedes past Hulkenberg showed his “awareness and calmness”, per Komatsu.
“That's another thing – he's always calm, even when he's upset or facing the adversity,” he added.
“He's just very calm, and even that yellow flag situation towards the end of the race with the big accident, lots of debris - but again he was calm.
“He had a presence of mind to say, 'ok, Nico's not on it' [and] just went.”
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