Ollie Bearman reflects on ‘really good’ opening day with Haas in Baku as he identifies weekend goal

Haas rookie Ollie Bearman had a successful incident-free Friday at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, paving the way for a ‘clean’ performance as he takes part in his first full F1 race weekend.

Bearman was drafted in following Kevin Magnussen’s one-race ban, allowing him to learn how Haas approach each session before he takes a full-time seat with them next season.

Bearman improved his lap times across Friday in Baku and finished the day in the top 10, keeping pace with experienced team mate Nico Hulkenberg who went just 0.072s faster than the Briton.

The 19-year-old has previous experience from replacing Carlos Sainz at the last minute during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix earlier this year while he has also driven the Haas VF-24 in FP1 outings.

‘My goal is to be proud of my performance’ – Bearman on his first race weekend for Haas

“FP2 was amazing, the best session of my life!” Bearman joked after completing the session. “No, it was nice to do a full Friday, build up step by step without having to rush anything. I was quite happy with how the day went, how it finished up. I was confident in the car, which is really important at a track like this, so a good day.”

In his first season in F2 in 2023, Bearman had an extremely successful round in Baku as he claimed pole position as well as victories in the Sprint Race and Feature Race. He admitted to the media yesterday that he still hit the wall in every session last year, but had a much smoother experience in his step up to F1.

Asked whether it’s trickier to drive in the larger F1 cars, he said: “Yeah, it’s tight. I only hit the wall once today in FP2, but it’s little things, you play with the margins here.

“I really built up the confidence and at the end I felt really good. I was taking it easy, step by step, but now I’ve built some confidence I feel like I can start to increase.

“My goal is to be proud of my performance. That’s going to be done by improving myself, eventually finishing at a level that I know I’m capable of and staying clean – having a clean tomorrow will be important.”

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN - SEPTEMBER 12: Nico Hulkenberg of Germany and Haas F1 looks on in the Paddock during previews ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan at Baku City Circuit on September 12, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Photo by James Sutton/Getty Images) — Hulkenberg has achieved 22 out of Haas's 28 points this season

With the Haas duo finishing in P8 and P10 in FP2, the team will be targeting another strong points haul as they chase down RB for sixth in the constructors’ standings.

Hulkenberg concluded that “the whole day was not bad” but “not perfect either”, recognising that practice results do not determine their performance for the entire weekend.

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“It’s a practice day, obviously getting to grips with this very interesting and intense circuit again. It was very, very dusty and sandy this morning – grip conditions were very poor, and then huge track evolution over the day, so just going with that and staying on top of the circuit evolution was key today.

“Didn’t have the cleanest run on the low fuel soft in the afternoon but it’s okay, we just need to learn from it, understand our package, understand the tyres and everything. I think it’s positive and a decent pace that we can compete from this weekend. We’ll try and obviously find a few more tricks and go a bit quicker tomorrow.”