One-time Formula 1 team-mates Ollie Bearman and Charles Leclerc share much common ground – beyond their shared experience racing Ferrari’s SF-24 around Jeddah’s high-speed city track blast.
While racing full-time in the lower formulas, they both made several practice appearances for the Haas squad where Bearman is now set to make an unscheduled early debut in place of Kevin Magnussen at next week’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. That can’t quite be ‘unexpected’ given how long Magnussen faced racing at F1’s penalty points limit, but Haas couldn’t know exactly when, and indeed, if, the Dane would earn any more sanctions.
The Baku City Circuit was a happy F2 hunting ground for both Leclerc and Bearman – as each took a clean sweep of weekend wins for the Prema Racing squad in their rookie seasons at the top level of junior single-seaters.
Here, the similarities diverge. For Leclerc lost his on-the-road 2017 F2 sprint race win – on the weekend his father died, it shouldn’t be forgotten – for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags. And the Monegasque driver’s four practice appearances in the VF-16 Haas the year before also didn’t exactly impress the American squad in the same way Bearman has managed over the last 12 months.
Leclerc felt those 2016 outings for Haas hampered his GP3 title-winning season (and in another difference to Bearman, he won the top two categories on F1’s support bill while the Briton’s junior titles came earlier, in Formula 4) so insisted he didn’t make any further F1 practice appearances as a Ferrari junior while racing in the 2017 F2 campaign until it was won. He led the line for Ferrari back in Jeddah, when Bearman was still set to remain in the Ferrari Academy rather than be soon set to graduate from it.
At 2024’s second race, Ferrari was firmly Red Bull’s closest challenger. McLaren had made a low-key start, while Mercedes and Aston Martin were floundering (to a greater and lesser extent respectively). That eased Bearman’s first F1 weekend a touch, which is not to undervalue how hard it was to step up from F2 and have only one practice session at a very challenging track, in place of the appendicitis-addled Carlos Sainz.
Baku was a happy hunting ground for Bearman in F2 last year, as he won both races
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
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