Oliver Bearman discovered he would make his Formula 1 debut with Ferrari this weekend less than three hours before getting in the car for final practice.
He was called up to replace Carlos Sainz Jnr who successfully underwent surgery today after being diagnosed with appendicitis.
Sainz said he felt “very weak” while practising for the race yesterday. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said the team hoped he would be well enough to continue driving today but his condition worsened.
“On Thursday morning he didn’t feel very well,” Vasseur told Sky. “At the beginning we were thinking [it was a] food issue. And this morning it was even worse. He went to the hospital and it was quite obvious.”
Ferrari told Bearman he would take over Sainz’s car no earlier than 1:30pm this afternoon. He was in the car three hours later.
Bearman was named the team’s reserve driver in January this year. He has driven a two-year-old Ferrari F1 car since then and had other opportunities to drive in the second half of 2023.
“He drove the old car a couple of months ago and he did very well,” said Vasseur. “Last year he did two FP1s with Haas in Mexico and [Abu Dhabi] and he did a good job on these two.
“For sure it’s a different story when you have to jump into the car in Jeddah for FP3, it’s not an easy one. On the other hand he did F2 yesterday, he did very well, [getting] the pole position, I think it was also a good preparation.”
Although Ferrari is taking over the car which Sainz took to a podium finish in Bahrain last week, Vasseur said the team is not placing him under any pressure to perform in his short-notice debut.
“In the junior series he did very, very well,” he said. “He was always in top two, top three, he won in F4, he won in F3. He’s doing a very good job.
“There is always a difference between doing a very good job in the junior series and to do a good job in F1. We don’t have to draw any conclusion now, we have to let him have time to do the job and I won’t put any pressure on him this weekend.”
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