Oliver Bearman, the 21-year-old driver for Haas, remembers the first time he watched a Formula 1 race at the track at Silverstone, in England. It was 2015, he was 10 years old and he sat among the partisan crowd of Lewis Hamilton supporters.
“I was screaming for Ferrari and Vettel,” Bearman said about the Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel. “Vettel was on the podium, and I was the guy screaming in the back. The only Ferrari fan, probably!”
Fast forward to 2021 and Bearman is driving his own car, racing at Silverstone for the first time, in the British GB3 Championship in 2021, with a mixed result.
“I qualified on pole, but my wheel fell off in the race,” he said. “So that wasn’t ideal.”
This weekend, Bearman, who was born near London, returns to Silverstone to compete in the British Grand Prix for the second time. He finished 11th last year.
“It’s one of the coolest tracks of the year,” he said. “It’s really one where the cars come alive. It’s a pleasure to drive F1 at Silverstone, and I’m looking forward to it, particularly since it’s my home race. It’s a special event.”
Bearman, in his second year in Formula 1, has swiftly established himself on the grid.
His first Formula 1 race was at age 18 at the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, filling in for an ill Carlos Sainz. Bearman finished seventh, scoring his first points. That year, he also started two races for Haas.
In 2025, he landed a full-time deal at Haas. Since then, he’s had an up-and-down campaign, which peaked when he placed fourth in Mexico City. He eclipsed his veteran teammate Esteban Ocon by 41 to 38 points. That trend has continued into 2026, with Bearman scoring 18 to Ocon’s 3, including a high of fifth in China.
“I think it’s been a good start to the year in a broad picture,” Bearman said. “I think I can be quite proud of the start of the year. In terms of personal performance, which is really the only thing I’m in control of, I think I’m doing a good job.”
Bearman pointed to a meeting last summer with his personal coach when they discussed what they were happy with and what he needed to improve on.
“It was clear the speed was there, but the consistency? Not quite,” Bearman said. Ayao Komatsu, the Haas team principal, has noted Bearman’s progression.
He and his team “know the environment they need to create; some drivers don’t do that,” Komatsu said. He added that another driver might “surround himself with people who tell him he’s great, you know? ‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ et cetera.”
Bearman is not like that, he said, adding that his management team is “very engaging and open. And he’s obviously in his second year, so he understands us better; we understand him better as well.”
It’s the subtle differences that set Bearman apart, Komatsu said, always being on the “right side of the fine margin. But that makes him incredibly quick.”
Bearman can already recognize the difference with a year’s experience under his belt.
“I’m understanding things a bit better, understanding the tires, able to predict what will happen prior to it actually happening,” he said. “Last year I was kind of always reacting to something instead of pre-empting. Those things — you can only really build that with experience, knowing the tracks like the back of your hand. That doesn’t happen in one race weekend. I want to continue to work on my consistency. I think I’ve done a really big step in that this year, and I’m really happy with the level that I’m performing at on a weekly basis.”
Bearman lives in Monaco, and his downtime away from Formula 1 is important.
“My No. 1 passion is sport,” he said. “I have to stay fit as part of the job — I absolutely love it. I’m cycling pretty much every morning, there’s some beautiful cycling around Monaco, some of the best climbs in the world.”
Several leading cyclists are based there too, and Bearman counts the four-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar among his occasional riding partners. “It must be incredibly boring for them to cycle with us,” Bearman said.
He also plays tennis and has attended tournaments, including Wimbledon.
“I love tennis, and I’m a big fan of the mentality required to compete at the top level,” he said. “Those guys are so incredibly fit and strong, and it’s a big motivator for us as well.”
Bearman has had an affiliation with Ferrari since 2022, initially as a junior driver, and continues to keep them appraised of his progress, with an eye to someday race with the team. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are the team’s current drivers.
“It’s my absolute dream to have success, and to have it with Ferrari would be really the ultimate goal,” Bearman said. “Also, since they believed in me from the very beginning, you know, that needs to be repaid somehow. I want to become a Ferrari driver.”
Ferrari would not comment on Bearman’s aspirations.
Bearman emphasized that “I see it as a huge success to continue with Haas next year, if that does happen. I think the team are on a great trajectory.”
His boss said the team has no plans on letting him go.
“Why would I not want to keep hold of him?” Komatsu said.
Bearman is eager to help Haas rise in the constructors’ championship.
“I want to be the one that hopefully one day brings them onto the podium,” he said, although he’s aware of the challenge of replacing one of the leading teams: Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.
“We’re not at that level, but it’s a journey,” he said. “It’s not that we should expect that too soon. First, we need to continually fight in the midfield and continue to fight at the front of the midfield and become the fifth team.”
“It’s not going to happen overnight,” Bearman said. “It’s not going to happen in one year. It probably won’t happen in three years. But this team is destined for great things.”