MoneyGram Haas F1 Team has signed Great Britain’s Oliver Bearman to compete for the US squad on a multi-year contract beginning with the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship. The 19-year-old Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy member is currently an official reserve driver for the team while contesting the FIA Formula 2 Championship for Prema Racing – Bearman collected his first win of the 2024 campaign last weekend in Austria in the Sprint race to add to his tally of four victories from a stellar rookie season in 2023.
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Bearman, in his additional role as reserve driver for Scuderia Ferrari, made a memorable Formula 1 debut back in March in Saudi Arabia, substituting for the sidelined Carlos Sainz – in doing so, becoming the third-youngest racer in Formula 1 history. His mature performance from the then 18-year-old from Chelmsford saw Bearman classified seventh and firmly in the points on his one-off race appearance behind the wheel of the SF-24, a promising sign of his potential in the sport.
No stranger to MoneyGram Haas F1 Team – the only American team competing in Formula 1, Bearman participated in two FP1 sessions for the Kannapolis outfit in 2023, in Mexico and Abu Dhabi, respectively, followed by a full day in the VF-23 at the end-of-season test in Abu Dhabi. Announced as an official reserve driver for MoneyGram Haas F1 Team in January of this year, Bearman’s work with the team this season includes six FP1 sessions, with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend marking his third appearance in the VF-24 with Hungary, Mexico and Abu Dhabi to follow.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal of MoneyGram Haas F1 Team, said: “It’s an exciting thing to give a young driver as talented as Oliver Bearman his first full-time seat in Formula 1. He’s developed into an incredibly mature driver under the guidance of the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy. The world saw that for themselves when he was called in at the last minute to compete at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Oliver proved he was more than ready for the task, and we’ve seen that for ourselves running him in the Haas cars in our FP1 sessions over the past two seasons.
We’re looking forward to further developing him as a driver and reaping the benefits of his talent – both inside and…
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