Former Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner chose Ollie Bearman as his 2025 rookie of the year.
The British driver finished his rookie season with Steiner's former team 13th in the drivers' standings with 41 points, ahead of his experienced team-mate Esteban Ocon in 15th with 38 points. While he started the season making some mistakes, he celebrated a fourth-place finish at the Mexican Grand Prix.
"I mean this year starting off being fast but making mistakes, but second half of the season he got rid of them, and it's just like a switch," Steiner said of Bearman during The Red Flags Podcast.
"In the first half of the season, I thought he's taking too much risk with the car he had, and therefore he had a few offs, and it wasn't good, got a lot of penalty points. He still kept on collecting them in the second half of the season but he didn't make mistakes anymore, even in the race, fighting hard."
The 20-year-old driver has been linked to a contract with Ferrari, should a seat become available in 2027, which Steiner has backed, along with others, including former F1 driver and Sky Sports analyst Martin Brundle.
"We all know that he can overtake and as you said, I think for him the door should be open to Ferrari for '27, because if Lewis hasn't got the success he needs to have, I don't think that he continues and then there is the obvious candidate there for Ferrari."
Bearman joined five other rookie drivers in 2025: Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto and Franco Colapinto. Antonelli finished top of the rookies in the drivers' standings with 150 points at Mercedes, followed by Hadjar in 12th, Bearman in 13th, Lawson in 14th, Bortoleto in 19th and Colapinto in 20th.
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