Ferrari has ruled out withdrawing Oliver Bearman from the current FIA F2 season, in order to focus on FP1 runs ahead of F1 season.
Amid a difficult second F2 season with Prema, there were some voices about Bearman dropping his year to focus solely on FP1 runs in order to prepare for his F1 season with Haas. But despite the calls, Ferrari has ruled out any such move.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur notes that any experience of racing is good experience irrespective of the season one is having. Bearman already has a F1 race under his bag, but his F2 season has been nothing sort of a disaster thus far.
Even though he has one win under his belt, he sits 15th in the standings with 34 points. He has six FP1 outings with Haas this year, while Ferrari could hand him a couple too. There will be more chances to come to him too as the season progressed.
But for now, Ferrari has ruled out any possibility of him ditching his F2 season. “You can get experience from everything, you can get experience from the FP1 and this could be very valuable for him for next year,” said Vasseur to media. “And he can also get experience even if the season is not an easy one for him for different reasons but you can learn from this situation.
“And it’s good to do it. Looking at the races in Belgium, if you have a look on race one, he recovered from last to P8 in one lap and a half. And the issue I think in F2 in Belgium is that overall, in the two races and one hour 15 of race they did three laps. And Ollie did half a lap this morning,” summed up Vasseur.
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