The day before Autosport sidled into the back of Haas’s garage at the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ollie Bearman had already made a point of getting to know all his mechanics working in this critical spot.
He’d gone around the whole Haas squad and said hello on Thursday – a new bundle of energy after the American team had gotten used to the laid-back unruffledness of two season pros in Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg for the last two seasons.
His media duties then subsequently fulfilled, finally, the fun arrived the next day.
On Friday, having been allowed a comparative lie-in thanks to F1’s later schedule compared to the early Formula 2 sessions he’d otherwise have been contesting for Prema Racing, Bearman was ready to drive Magnussen’s VF-24.
We watch as he gets his helmet strapped on, takes in last words from his personal support team (Enzo Mucci and Jamie Smith) and climbs aboard. Experienced F1 race engineer Mark Slade runs him through switch and systems settings on the steering wheel, then it’s off for the first of three runs – two medium stints either side of a softs run.
In this session, he’ll finish 11th and ahead of Hulkenberg, who endures a DRS problem without which there would’ve been a 0.4s gap – to the veteran’s advantage.
We can clearly hear more driver coaching going on from Magnussen’s engineering crew – Hulkenberg is digesting data himself when back in the garage and warns his team about possible floor damage, whereas for Bearman it is Slade spotting a pitot tube sensor data anomaly that has mechanics diving to check the right-rear diffuser.
Alex Kalinauckas, Autosport Journalist
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
But the main takeaway from listening in to Bearman’s radio for the heavily disrupted opening one-hour session is just how silent he is on the radio overall. Only urgent reporting “I have quite bad graining” on a long run late in the session betrays a hint of bother.
“That’s typical for rookies – they’re just absorbing so much,” explains Ed Brand, driver performance engineer (for both Haas cars) and team strategy engineer.
Autosport decamps to Baku’s chandelier-heavy hotel conference room media centre for FP2, but Haas insiders later report that this silent sponge approach from Bearman carries on in the second Friday session. There, he finishes 10th – this time two spots but just 0.072s behind Hulkenberg.
Come Saturday, the paddock…
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